Bridge to nowhere no longer, Leechburg bike trail adds extension

Just five months after the Leechburg Towpath Bike Trail was opened to the public, another half-mile has been added to take people into Hyde Park.

The trail was created in two sections, with a milelong section built directly into the borough. This section of the project was headed by members of the Leechburg Area Community Development Corp.

The corporation ended up taking on the role of developer, sponsor and trail owner.

The trail will stretch from the Mill Bridge, which crosses the Kiski River between West Leechburg and Leechburg, to the Hyde Park footbridge. The extension takes trail users across the bridge and into the adjacent borough.

“The walking bridge is a neat thing to have,” said Lou Phillips, president of the corporation. “It’s a tourist attraction. It’s something people like to look back on and revisit from their childhood.”

He said that while the bridge is a community staple, upkeep can be expensive. The community group hopes having the bridge as part of the trail will help make grants more accessible to keep the bridge safe for use.

“We want people to know they can go somewhere once they cross the bridge,” Phillips said.

The new extension takes people to Enterprise Drive in Hyde Park and leads them to the borough’s boat ramp, said Hyde Park Borough Secretary Tifanie Gagen.

She said the group approached borough council about 1½ years ago regarding the project.

“We were excited,” Gagen said. “Anything that’s positive for the community, we’re always all in for it.”

She said a small portion of the borough’s budget will be dedicated to the trail’s upkeep. She said the borough does not foresee any increase in maintenance cost than what’s already dedicated to upkeep in the area.

“We already maintained the property to begin with,” Gagen said.

The corporation funded the project using a $25,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. Work took about 1½ weeks to complete.

The extension is now owned and maintained by Hyde Park Borough.

“We’re a small community, and our budget is very small,” Gagen said. “When they offered to do this for us, it was something that was welcomed.”

Gagen said she already has used the trail’s extension since its opening in the last week of September.

The trail from Schenley through Leechburg is called the Towpath Trail in recognition of the towpath mules that used to tow canal boats in the early 1800s, Phillips previously told TribLive.

He said the towpath became the right of way for rail traffic when the railroads bought and drained the canal.