Montour Trail gets needed updates
Four major projects to extend or enhance sections of the Montour Trail in the South Hills are scheduled to finish this year, officials said, including three bridges to separate trail users from busy roads.
The $2.6 million Library Viaduct conversion was completed this month, where Thornbury Inc. of Sunbury put a surface with observation decks on a railroad bridge that carries the trail over Library Road, Piney Fork and light rail tracks in South Park. The trail on either side is under construction, but passable.
“It's in a temporarily rough condition, but we're going to dress it up,” said Ned Williams, president of the Montour Trail Council. “Final construction will start in a couple of months, and hopefully finish by the end of the summer.”
The Montour Trail is a 46-mile route for walkers, runners and bicyclists that follows old railroad rights-of-way from Moon to Clairton, with branches toward Pittsburgh International Airport, Westland and Bethel Park and a connection to the Panhandle Trail to West Virginia.
From the east end of the rebuilt Library Viaduct, contractors are extending the trail 940 feet to end at Pleasant Street, where trail users then have to share a short stretch of Pleasant and about a mile of Brownsville Road with cars until the dedicated trail resumes off Stewart Road.
The trail extension, when completed, should cost $450,000 and should make it much easier for bike riders, hikers and runners traversing long portions of the trail, Williams said.
“A lot of the time when riders got to a bridge that's not finished, people would stop and turn around rather than go with traffic,” he said. “(These projects) will make this a much more complete, connected system.”
A project, in the planning stages, would extend the trail between Pleasant Street and Wood Street, a few hundred feet along Brownsville Road from Stewart, but that won't start construction until next year at the earliest, Williams said.
Meanwhile in Peters, work is continuing on the $1.6 million Valley Brook Bridge No. 2, a new span across Valley Brook Road that will eliminate the need for users to get off the trail and follow the road's shoulder. The bridge abutments are being completed and steel girders should be placed in May, Williams said. If all goes according to schedule the deck could be poured, railings installed and the bridge open by August, he said.
Rich Childs, 74, of Lawrence said the bridge improvements separating trail users from car traffic will make things a lot easier for users like him who are wary of riding too close to cars.
“It's going to help a heck of a lot. It puts a bicyclist in a lot less danger,” Childs said. “You have some real roadies who don't mind riding with traffic, but at my age, I'll just stick to the trail, thank you.”
In Cecil, a project has begun that will realign the intersection of state routes 980 and 50.
A three-span bridge will carry the trail over the reconfigured intersection, and will re-use an old railroad bridge to cross Miller's Run.
That contract, worth an estimated $2.3 million, went to New Stanton-based CH&D Enterprises and could be done by the end of September.
Dave Poe's Tandem Connection bike shop is in a former coal company store along the trail, between the Valley Brook and Route 980/50 bridges. Poe is eagerly awaiting their completion this summer.
“With the improvements going on, the people stopping into the store are very excited about them,” said Poe, who opened the shop in 2012 in conjunction with two more bridges that opened closer to his location.
“This building, otherwise, had been on an island. ... The bridges are just going to be a great asset.”
Matthew Santoni is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5625 or msantoni@tribweb.com.
