New grant, same goal: Monroeville officials to expand Saunders Station trailhead area

Monroeville officials will pivot from planning a new Valley Park bridge to expanding the Saunders Station access area for the Westmoreland Heritage Trail.

“We accepted a grant to build a new bridge over Turtle Creek, and the feasibility of that is beyond the original scope of the project,” Graziani said at council’s meeting Sept. 2. “Simply put, we thought we could build a bridge for about $400,000, and when the final costs came in, it was about $1 million.”

At their meeting Sept. 9, council members approved a “drop letter” to the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, essentially giving back a previous grant for the pedestrian bridge.

The municipality will reapply for similar grant funding for a different project with the same basic goal.

The original grant — which had to be spent by the end of this year — would have seen the pedestrian bridge connect Valley Park to the trail, which makes a northeast bend in the area and runs between Meadowbrook Road and the park.

In addition to the Saunders Station trailhead, which is west of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the pedestrian bridge would have provided another trail access point on the turnpike’s eastern side.

“The DCNR is amenable to us submitting another grant request to improve access to the (Westmoreland Heritage Trail), which was the grant’s original goal,” he said. “It seemed the best way to do that was to expand the existing Saunders Station area, particularly because we own the land, and there are also water and sewer lines nearby, so we can add some comfort areas for trail users.”

“We think we can achieve all the goals of the original grant,” Graziani said.