BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Neat. I look forward to riding that segment of trail, as in a former life I maintained those old coke oven gas lines.

Sandcastle sucks...

Nice. Although, the article leads one to believe that the discussions with Sandcastle aren't going well. I thought things were progressing once Sandcastle was advised that their road was partially on railroad property?

When I read that article this morning my first thought was whether the Sandcastle holdout might be something that could be given more publicity locally. Sometimes a little media attention gets corporations moving right quick. Being the last mile preventing a 335 mile inter-city trail from connecting (and on property held by a recognizable local name whose business depends on the public) seems like an easy story.

The term "progressing" has been used to describe talks with Sandcastle for decades, which makes it a very unique usage of the term that has nothing to do with the actual definition of the word.

Until an agreement is actually in hand, I have no reason to believe any "progress" reports.

"A $500,000 state grant helped to fund the bridges, with private money paying the rest of the $950,000 cost, Mr. Paulik said. Developing the piers and substructure cost $2.5 million, nearly all of which was private donations, he said."

So... of the $3.45 million, $2.95 million is private funds. That's ~85% private funds, 15% public funds. Are those abysmal percentages par for the course for alternate transportation projects?

ejwme, considering that only half of the 3 rivers bike racks were paid for by the city and the other half grants, I would say that is par for the course.

Sigh. I'm also guessing state roads and turnpikes and city roads do not share those funding experiences.

Funding inequities aside, someone should write a letter to the editor reminding Sandcastle that after a 5 day bike ride from DC, many cyclists would be ecstatic to spend a day or weekend at a huge water park, especially if they heard how kind Sandcastle owners were in donating the land to the trail, completing the final link.

I've been trying to come up with wording that wasn't snide and snarky, but nothing else comes out this early

So... of the $3.45 million, $2.95 million is private funds. That's ~85% private funds, 15% public funds. Are those abysmal percentages par for the course for alternate transportation projects?

Considering that federally funded surface transportation projects are 20% local government and 80% federal government, the fact that only 15% of the funds were public funds says a great deal about the priorities of previous and current government administrations.

I say current, because local, state and federal governments have no current legislative mechanisms which support their recently advertised positions on "smart transportation", "multi-modal" innitiatives, or reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

So is there an up to date map of the trail from

here to mckeesport that shows all this new stuff?

I have a Google Earth file at http://www.tasigh.org/kmz/ but that section of trail isn't quite updated yet. I haven't had the chance to ride from McKeesport to Duquesne.

Here's an email from the Steel Valley Trail Council just sent to the Yahoo group for the GAP. Reposting because it includes various good links.

Hello Members and Friends of the SVTC:

Yesterday, the Steel Valley Trail section of the Great Allegheny Passage took another step towards completion. Within a small time frame given to us by the railroads, two bridges that span several sets of tracks at two locations between Duquesne and the Waterfront were placed on their piers. The importance of these bridges cannot be understated.

Please see the following links below for more information about the placement of the bridges. Thank you to Paul, one of our board members, for providing one of the videos and the photos.

***Please note that the placement of these bridges does not mean that the trail is ready to use. They are located in an active construction zone where we continue to work closely with our trail neighbors in the area. The bridges themselves are not accessible for use at the moment (with no connecting ramps that still need to be built).

Please help us by not trespassing at this time and instead enjoying the open sections of the Steel Valley Trail and Great Allegheny Passage.

Article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10189/1071217-455.stm

Article from KDKA.com:

http://kdka.com/Link.ashx?R=http%3a%2f%2fkdka.com%2flocal%2fbridges.bicyclists.project.2.1792408.html

Video from KDKA.com:

http://kdka.com/Link.ashx?R=http%3a%2f%2fkdka.com%2fvideo%2f%3fid%3d74082%40kdka.dayport.com

YouTube - time lapse video of Whitaker flyover placement:

(please read the related caption)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv8B8aZx_RE

Still photos of the location and bridges:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pheckbert/WhitakerAndPortPerryFlyoversSteelValleyTrail

Once again, please do not visit the construction site at this time as we work to close the gap in the Passage.

Thank you,

Steel Valley Trail Council

I posted something on great_allegheny_passage@yahoogroups.org, also. The links are the same as those given by Jim Taggart in his earlier posting there.

From: ph@cs.cmu.edu

Subject: two new bridges erected for the Great Allegheny Passage!

Date: 2010/07/08 3:05:53 PM EDT

On Wednesday, two bridges over railroad tracks were erected along the banks of the Monongahela River upstream of Pittsburgh. One was at Whitaker, just upstream of the Rankin Bridge, and the other was in the area known as Port Perry, between Kennywood and Duquesne.

Here are videos, stories, and pictures:

news story from the Post-Gazette:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10189/1071217-455.stm

news video and story from KDKA:

http://kdka.com/Link.ashx?R=http%3a%2f%2fkdka.com%2flocal%2fbridges.bicyclists.project.2.1792408.html

time lapse video of the Whitaker bridge - fun!

(watch in 1080p mode, full screen, for best resolution. has audio)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv8B8aZx_RE

still photos of Whitaker and Port Perry bridges:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pheckbert/WhitakerAndPortPerryFlyoversSteelValleyTrail#

synopsis:

These bridges are critical links in the Steel Valley Trail along the Monongahela River, which forms part of the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail from Pittsburgh toward Washington DC.

As of July 2010, this section of trail is not open (it will take months to build the ramps up to these bridges) but at least the hardest part of the construction -- installing these bridges over active railroad tracks -- is done. For now the contiguous portion of the GAP starts in Duquesne at Grant Ave. When the ramps and surface work is done, the trail will be extended from Duquesne, past Kennywood, to the Waterfront in Homestead. Then these bridges will be opened. That is expected in late 2010 or early 2011. At that point, the need for an agreement with Sandcastle, and closure of that short gap, will become even clearer than it is already!

Steel Valley Trail Council relies on volunteers. If you'd like to help maintain, publicize, and build these trails, see steelvalleytrail.org .

I can't wait for this work to be completed.

what did they do with the old bridges that were right by there? did they reuse those spans or are they still sitting there covered in ivy?

The old steel mill pedestrian bridges are still in place. The one closer to the new bridge is stable but the other one, closer to the Carrie Furnace Hot Metal Bridge, has a lot of deterioration and you should probably stay off of it.

interesting that they didn't just reuse that one... i guess this one will last about 300 years though

also, did they tear down that old railroad factory on that trail yet? i imagine its going to get covered in graffiti now that the trail is open to the public... kinda bummed about that.

Re sandcastle. I think it has been fairly easy for them to stall on this because they could quite rightly feel that there was still a huge stretch of trail that wasn't ready yet. Now it almost is done.

Once the trail is finished from the Waterfront all the way to Washington DC, and the only place on the whole trail that isn't open to Downtown is their stretch--they'll probably begin to attract the pressure and type of negative publicity they don't want.

I really hope some progress has been made on the sandcastle negotiations by next spring. At that time the trail should open from DC to the Waterfront.

When the link through Sandcastle is complete how will it connect to downtown?

whens this thing gonna be able to ride?

From the P-G:

Allegheny County and Sandcastle Waterpark are expected to announce an agreement within days that will allow completion of the last missing piece of a biking and hiking trail linking Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

The section through Sandcastle will connect up to the existing Baldwin Borough trail which runs to the Hot Metal Bridge. The Baldwin Borough trail is only open weekends (due to construction), from now until the spring of 2011.

It looks like the GAP will get to the Waterfront by January 2011. If they get the Sandcastle section built by then, I suppose it would be all open to downtown, weekends only, as of January 2011. But if the Sandcastle section takes longer (which seems likely, given that it's at such an early stage now), I'm guessing that you could still ride through Sandcastle, trail or no trail, as soon as the park opens again in 2011 (just as you can now). And when the trail is finally complete, you won't have to worry about Sandcastle being open.

awesome! between this and the amtrak thing, riding to DC is going to be too convenient to resist

@rsprake,

It will come right through to the South Side trail that runs from the Hot Metal Bike/Ped Bridge down to the Glenwood Bridge. The official path will probably be over the Hot Metal Bridge to the Eliza Furnace (Jail) trail but you could also continue down the South Side to Smithfield Street or even all the way to the Fort Pitt Bridge past Station Square.

That section of the South Side trail is closed (except on weekends?) at the moment because Penn American Water is replacing their pumping station there but that will be finished long before the other section of the trail is complete I suspect.

I think that the Sandcastle section will be done before Memorial Day next year. According to the article, the trail will be essentially a repainting of the parking lot. They will need to have that done before the season opens next year so they will be doing that during the off season and will be done by the time the park opens in the spring.

What about connecting to the Southside trail west from the Glenwood Bridge? It's only a few hundred yards, but there's not enough space (I think) between the tracks and the junkyard, I mean, not enough for the RR to be happy about it. Maybe there is? Or will the trail grab some footage from the junkyard north of the treeline? Anyone know?

The sign on the trail right there always cracks me up. I come down the tracks, get to the point where the trail starts, and there's the sign, "Not A Trail Entrance". And yet, I enter.

Nate, that is the section I am talking about. How will they connect the end of the Southside trail to Sandcastle? I have never tried to go passed the little turn around so I don't know what it looks like.

Oh you should just ride it. Along the tracks. Not a big deal, although pure road bikes probably will walk over some sections of ballast. It's a very short distance.

Then you connect to some worthwhile roads, Glenwood Bridge back over to 2nd Ave, or up Streets Run or up Glass Run depending.

But it's not currently an officially acceptable trail at all.

That is what I am curious about. They keep saying the trail will be complete, but don't mention how they will connect that last little bit legally.

That always confused me about the trails here. Particularly the trail on the southside. You have a few miles of well-paved trail, then a 20 foot chunk of gravel, broken glass, rocks, a railroad rail sticking out at some random angle (at least someone painted it orange, not that it helps at night). What is preventing these small bits from being paved and making the trail more uninterrupted?

Its like leaving an entire block of 5th Ave dirt and gravel, but paving the rest of it.

They've had an agreement for a long time with the property owners just west of Sandcastle to construct a trail on their property. It's been on hold, waiting for the final trail alignment through Sandcastle to be worked out. I'm guessing the question is whether the trail goes along the north edge of their property by the river or the south edge next to the tracks.

I agree that they're likely to do the work during Sandcastle's off season. But it's more than repainting packing lots -- there's a narrow stretch where they'll have to fit the trail between the road and the tracks. It's possible the necessary design work won't be done in time for construction this winter, and the whole thing would have to wait until Sandcastle closes again in 2011. Fingers crossed though.

What is the route from the Rankin Bridge to the trail behind the apartments in the Waterfront? Is there some arrangement with Marcegaglia to go through their property or will it be using the road/sidewalk around the Marcegaglia location? I seem to remember reading about some agreement with Marcegaglia but haven't seen any activity on their property.

This is the flip side of rsprake's question between Sandcastle and the end of the Southside trail.

rprake That is what I am curious about. They keep saying the trail will be complete, but don't mention how they will connect that last little bit legally.

This is a total guess, but....

I'm guessing they will make a trail right next the ramp for 837. Likely pricey as hell, but worth it. Then a ramp and bridge to cross the railroad. Also pricey and worthy.

@tim- yes, the trail will be set back, not just the sidewalk as it exists now

Yeah I guess my question is how is the trail going to be demarcated from the Waterfront ped/bike bridge to the Sandcastle access road? Is the trail going to be continued along the road there? How is the trail going to be marked around the area around the Loews' and Costco otherwise?