BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

These do not connect to trails closer to the city, but upriver there are two that come to mind--the Butler Freeport trail and also the Armstrong Trail. The Armstrong Trail traces the south/east side of the Allegheny River north starting at Ford City, while the Butler Freeport Trail goes between those two places.

http://www.armstrongcounty.com/hike.php

http://butlerfreeporttrail.org/

Google's bicycle layer lets you visualize these trails and where they go: https://maps.google.com/?ll=40.849657,-79.516983&spn=0.511605,0.837021&t=m&z=11&lci=bike

There's a plan to build a trail up the Allegheny. Perhaps the maps showing the proposed route would be useful. Not much of it is an official bike trail yet, of course.

Thanks

Steven -

is the 'proposed' route(s) currently ridable -even if they are not official- i.e. are they all Railroad ballast?

We had a thread here in March 2010 (I may be able to dig up the link later) which discussed some public meetings to talk about such a path. What I remember coming of it was that we might be closer to having a signed route, i.e., a series of on-road streets connecting trail snippets, than to a continuous path. We could have the former within a decade, the latter within our lifetimes maybe.

I remember the date because of having to stand in still knee-deep snow following Snowmageddon of a few weeks earlier, waiting for a bus after the meeting in Millvale.

Here's a link to the proposed route from Pittsburgh to Freeport along the north side of the Allegheny.

http://www.friendsoftheriverfront.org/files/trail_status.html#communitytrailinitiative

From Freeport, you can jump on the Butler Freeport Community Trail, and ride all the way into the City of Butler (all open and in good shape as of this writing in October 2012).

Further north along the Allegheny you can pick up the Armstrong Trail, which heads right through Ford City (and beyond), but exists in spurs and pieces at present.

I haven't been on it, sorry. But the report I linked to (same one Swalfoort just linked to) describes the route segment by segment, and points out which segments could go via an existing railroad service road (section 5 in the feasibility report). Appendix G also includes photos from each segment.

Like Stu said, the proposed trail has two possible routes for each segment. Mostly, the less-nice route requires Norfolk Southern to let us rework its access road, and the nice route closer to the water requires a bunch of private property owners to give us some of their land.

Farther north, though, it's different, and the railroad often isn't involved in either option.

@swalfoort -- "From Freeport, you can jump on the Butler Freeport Community Trail, and ride all the way into the City of Butler."

Almost but not quite true yet. The last 1/4 mile is not yet finished. The BFT Trail council, and Buffalo Township (who actually owns the trail), are waiting for permit approval from DEP for a bridge over Coal Run to be able to bridge the stream and get the last 1/4 mile done. Then it is complete. In the meantime you have to hop off the trail and road ride to get into town. Expectations are that the bridge will be in and the last segment opened by spring 2013 at the latest.

thanks eveyone