HAPPIER TRAILS: Funding announced to close last Montgomery County gap in Schuylkill River Trail
POTTSTOWN — Since its inception about 40 years ago, the 120-mile Schuylkill River Trail was envisioned as being a piecemeal project — built in sections.
Different sections were built with different partners when the stars aligned (the funding became available) with the idea that eventually, the trail would run along the length of the river from Philadelphia, where it meets the mighty Delaware River, all the way up to the Schuylkill River’s headwaters in Frackville, Schuylkill County.
As each section is completed, the vision becomes a few miles closer to fruition. Funding for closing a crucial gap in the trail was announced in Pottstown on Tuesday in Riverfront Park, home of the headquarters of the Schuylkill River National Area which oversees management and expansion of the entire trail.
Chester County Section Completed
The announcement came on the heels of the Earth Day opening of a four-mile section in Chester County linking Parker Ford and the Route 422 bridge over the river back into Montgomery County, completing all of Chester county’s portion of the trail, which runs from Phoenixville to North Coventry. That final section had a price tag of $6 million.
Not to be outdone, the announcement Tuesday previews the completion of all the trail located in Montgomery County as well.
At .9 miles, this much smaller but crucial section of the trail will be built thanks to a $397,800 grant from Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. As Pottstown area users of the trail know, it ends along Industrial Highway, lacking access to the Route 22 bridge between Sanatoga and Kenilworth which, when it was newly constructed a few years ago, included a trail crossing.
This new section will close that gap and complete the Montgomery County portion as well.
“We’re celebrating nine-tenths of a mile but this section is critical,” said Sarah Clark Stuart of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. “Every inch counts.”
Located behind the Route 422 Sports-plex in Lower Pottsgrove, the newest section will link the section on Industrial Highway with the bridge, through land that was obtained by Montgomery County, a task that “turned out to be trickier than we anticipated,” according to Chris Linn, a manager at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.”
People Need Green
Only one other gap remains, in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia and then the trail will connect Center City Philadelphia to Reading with 40 miles of continuous, multiuse trail.
That’s good news because longer sections of trail attract visitors from farther and wider, according to most trail experts.
“If you live in Pottstown, how lucky are you?” DCNR Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn said to much applause during the announcement Tuesday.
“The COVID pandemic showed us just how important outdoor amenities like this are,” she said. “When people are under stress they go to what they need. They need green. They need clean water and to breathe clean air,” Adams Dunn said. Because being outside was safer during the pandemic, “people voted with their sneakers and their boots and showed up on trails and in parks in record numbers like we’ve never seen.”
“And, as a result, more of the public understands just how important that is” and local officials and citizens “are demanding more,” Adams Dunn said.
Growing Greener III
To answer that demand, Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed using $450 million of the $1.7 billion provided to Pennsylvania from the federal American Rescue Plan for a conservation program he has labeled “Growing Greener III,” the inheritor of the first two conservation initiatives under Gov. Tom Ridge and Gov. Tom Corbett.
Dovetailing with initiatives in both the Republican-controlled House and Senate, the money would be used for on-time expenses, like purchase of passive open space, that would not come with future maintenance costs. State Sens. John Gordner, R-27th Dist.; Bob Mensch, R-24th Dist. and Carolyn Comitta, D-19th Dist., have introduced bipartisan legislation proposing to allocate funds from the rescue plan to pay for watershed, farm conservation, mine reclamation and recreation projects in Senate Bill 525.
Committa has also joined with Republican state Sen. Gen Yaw, R-23rd Dist., on Senate Bill 465 which would establish a new program to pay for on-farm conservation measures administered by the State Conservation Commission.
“There’s lots of land to conserve,” Adams Dunn said.
Trail Benefits
The bill would coincide with the DCNR goal to have a trail or park within 10 minutes of every Pennsylvanian, so they can all be as lucky as people who live in Pottstown. “Pottstown is blessed with lots of facilities for outdoor recreation,” said state Rep. Tim Hennessey, R-26th Dist., who will represent the southern portion of Pottstown until the census-driven district lines change in January.
“Trails are a great place to bring communities together,” said state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist.
And people are certainly coming.
That was no doubt helped when, in 2015, the Schuylkill River Trail took first place as the Best Urban Trail in USA Today’s 10 Best Readers Choice poll. And just last year, the trail came in third place in USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Contest for Best Riverwalk.
According to the “Return on Environment Study: The Economic Impact of Protected Open Space in Montgomery County,” released in March and which used Pottstown’s section of the trail as a case study, the Schuylkill River Trail’s Pottstown section is used by 70,000 users a year.
The closing of the gap announced Tuesday “will increase the usage of the Pottstown section of the SRT exponentially, bringing even more benefit to the surrounding Pottstown community.”
According to the study, “users have a meaningful economic footprint on the area, supporting a new river and trail outfitter, a robust local bike shop, and several new brew pubs in Pottstown within walking distance of the trail.”
Using sources from three analyses released last year, “it is estimated that users along the Schuylkill River Trail in Pottstown spend $3.5 million on soft and hard goods and $4.8 million is spent on management and maintenance, generating a total economic impact of $8.3 million in Montgomery County, supporting 90 jobs with $3 million in employee compensation,” Montgomery County’s study reported. “This short stretch of a long-distance trail provides reverberating economic impacts in the local vicinity and county.”
Increased Real Estate Values
Proximity to open space and trails also increases the value of nearby real estate, Montgomery County’s study found. It used the 12.6-mile Green Ribbon Trail in the eastern part of the county as a case study.
Stretching between Parkside Place in Upper Gwynedd Township and Stenton Avenue in Whitemarsh Township, the preserve and trail follow the Wissahickon Creek for its entire length.
“There are 2,646 houses located within a half mile mile of the Green Ribbon Preserve, and it is estimated that 13.5 percent of the property value of homes within a half-mile mile of the trail is attributable to the proximity of the trail and preserved open space,” the study reported. “This is higher than the county average of 2.95 percent. In other words, if the Green Ribbon Preserve and Trail were removed, the total assessment value of these homes would decrease by $87 million or $33,184 per house.”
The increased value “equates to an additional $2.83 million in total annual property taxes (or approximately $1,072 per property) generated for the municipalities and school districts. Additionally, the Wissahickon Creek and public trails located within the Green Ribbon Preserve are increasingly being used to market the area’s real estate for its proximity to natural, green spaces,” according to the study.
Just ask Sedina Miles.
Miles lives in Douglassville and is an area Realtor. Her daughter introduced her to the Pottstown trail section and she visits it regularly “to get in my 10,000 steps,” she said with a laugh.
“When I sell properties in the city, whenever I have a property near the river or the trail, it always sells for more, and much, much faster,” Miles said.
These are just some of the reasons, said Montgomery County Commissioners Chairwoman Val Arkoosh, “why Montgomery county has made investing in trail systems a top priority.”
Born in Berks County
The trail got its start in Berks County after the legislature enacted the Pennsylvania Scenic Rivers Act in 1972. “Reading-area twin brothers Ferdinand and Louis Thun, with the desire to reactivate their father’s interest in land preservation and conservation, turned their attention to the Schuylkill River and surrounding region,” according to the history posted on the Schuylkill River National Heritage Area website.
“While Louis Thun took leadership in the formation of the Berks County Conservancy, now Berks Nature; Ferdinand and a small group of friends, including Victor Yarnell who was the Deputy Secretary of Commerce, began working toward a Scenic River designation for the Schuylkill. In 1974, the Schuylkill River Greenway Association was formed,” according to the history.
The Schuylkill River Greenway eventually evolved into the Schuylkill River National Heritage Area.
The PA Department of Environmental Resources, now known as the Department of Environmental Protection, financed a “Schuylkill River Study” and in 1978, the legislature designated the Schuylkill as Pennsylvania’s first Scenic River.
“It was during these formative years that the development of the Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) became one of the primary goals and projects of the SRGA. With the desire to build upon the already accomplished work of Philadelphia, Montgomery and Chester Counties, the SRGA began trail development in Berks County and later in Schuylkill County as well. To this day the Schuylkill river Trail is the greenway’s signature project,” according to the history.
Conservation Ambassadors
Elaine Schaeffer, executive director of the Schuylkill River National Heritage Area, knows that the value of the organization’s “signature project” goes beyond enjoyment. The appreciation for nature and greenspace that it inevitably inspires often turns users into advocates.
Speaking to the crowd gathered in Pottstown Tuesday for the funding announcement, she repeated a line she happily admitted to stealing from Adams Dunn — “recreation is the gateway drug to conservation.”
One way to raise that awareness is the seven-year old “Montco Trails Challenge,” a particular favorite of Montgomery County Commissioners Vice Chairman Ken Lawrence.
The program “encourages participants to track their visits to select Montgomery County trails to earn awards for completing visits to five, 10, or 15 participating trails. In 2021, the Montco Trail Challenge saw more than 2,000 participants ranging in age from 2 months old to 80 years old. The program draws people from the surrounding region representing Montgomery, Bucks, Berks, Chester, Philadelphia, and Delaware counties,” according to the county announcement.
A kickoff event for this year’s Trail Challenge is scheduled for Saturday, June 4 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Trail Junction Center off the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown. The public is invited to attend this event to visit with area organizations and to receive a free children’s bike helmet while supplies last! The event will also feature a pop-up StoryWalk® and a Farm Explorer truck and smoothie bike provided by Greener Partners. The Trail Junction Center is located at 75 E Lafayette St, Norristown, PA 19401. Parking is available at the SEPTA garage on Lafayette Street.
“Whether you are a lifelong resident or a first time visitor, we look forward to seeing you out on the trails,” said Lawrence.
“The 2021 Montco Trail Challenge survey showed that 92 percent of respondents visited a new park or trail, and 83 percent learned something new about their community. The Trail Challenge also encouraged participants to get active, with 85 percent of survey takers said they walked more, 23 percent biked more, and 14 percent ran more. Overall, 82 percent of survey respondents said they improved their physical health, and 91 percent improved their mental health,” according to this year’s announcement.
The idea is that people introduced to outdoor recreation, often become more and more aware of what it has to offer.
A walk on the trail leads to awareness of a boat ramp, or the availability of free bikes to borrow (both the case in Pottstown) and become more involved. That’s what happened to Miles Tuesday.
When speaking to a reporter at Riverfront Park Tuesday, she was amazed to learn that with the completion of the section in Lower Pottsgrove will mean a person could ride a bike from Philadelphia to Reading. “That’s phenomenal,” she said. Asked if she enjoyed being out on the river itself, she replied “I love kayaking.”
Lo and behold, she was shown the boat launch in Riverfront Park and taken to the soon-to-be opened Take it Outdoors canoe and kayak rental facility right across the parking lot from her car. “Are you kidding? I don’t believe it,” she said. But seeing was believing.
The completion of the last section of trail in Montgomery County means more visitors, walkers, bikers, kayakers, and more. It also means, Schaeffer said with a chuckle, “we will be thrilled to be able stop picking up the phone and answering the question ‘when will all this be finished?’”
Of course, it’s not quite finished, she conceded. “There’s still 40 more miles to build.”
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