The Montour Trail Council will host an opening ceremony at Hendersonville Park at noon on Saturday for trail bridges over Georgetown and Morganza Roads in Cecil Township, Washington County.
Before completion of these bridges, trail users had to cross the busy state roads through traffic, according to the Council's President, Ned Williams, who said the cost was $1.9 million, with funding from many sources. "The money came from the federal Transportation Enhancements program, the state of Pennsylvania through the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and we applied to the Washington County Local Share Accounts, a fund set up out of the gambling money — out of the Meadows Race Track and Casino — for local projects."
Williams said many people realized the importance of the safety improvements, leading to contributions from smaller agencies as well, such as the Washington County Tourism Promotion agency. The cost of the project was kept down by doing the two bridges as one project, and volunteers did the work of reconstructing the parts of the trail adjacent to the new bridges.
Four more bridges are in the works, said Williams: two just west of Route 19 in Peters Township, one that crosses Route 50 in Cecil Township, and one across Route 88 in South Park Township.
Williams said the Montour Trail opened a branch to the airport this past spring and connects near the town of McDonald to the Panhandle Trail that runs from Walkers Mill near Carnegie almost to Weirton, West Virginia and then through communities across the river into parts of Ohio. The eastern end of the Montour Trail connects through Clairton and Glassport to McKeesport and the Great Allegheny Passage that goes from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C.
