The future of the P2P: Will it ever be finished?

By Lauryn Saxour
Newsroom@DominionPost.com
There are only 20.72 miles to close in West Virginia and 23 miles in Pennsylvania for the Parkersburg to Pittsburgh Rail Trail (P2P) to become a reality, but community members have begun to question if the 238-mile trail will ever be completed.
Most of the trail will be in West Virginia and is 80% complete, but there are four short gaps between Fairmont and Parkersburg. In Pennsylvania, all of the gaps are between Point Marion and Connellsville, on the Sheepskin Trail, which connects Parkersburg to Pittsburgh, but also connects Parkersburg to Cumberland, Md., via the Great Allegheny Passage.
Ella Belling, the executive director of the Mon River Trail Conservancy (MRTC), said expanding the trail system was always part of the MRTC’s plan.
“MRTC has always wanted to extend and connect to other rail-trails,” Belling said. “It is a common vision in trail organizations and communities. The ideas on connections on either end of [the] Mon River Rail Trail system likely started the day we formed.”
The MRTC is a member of The Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition (IHTC), which wants to establish a 1,500-mile-plus, multi-use trail network. The IHTC network would stretch across 51 counties in four states — Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and New York. When completed, the network of trails would be the longest shared-use trail system in North America.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money have been awarded in West Virginia to finish the P2P. The Pennsylvania side of the trail is still years from connecting the two cities. Despite enthusiasm from many, future connections remain uncertain. Sarah Cawlyer, who works with the Sheepskin Trail in Pennsylvania to build community connections, said her outlook on the future of the trail and its completion changes weekly.
Several factors slow the progress of trail construction, including funding, property disputes and location-specific challenges.
Funding and property disputes
Belling said funding is a hindrance for trail expansion. Rail-trail organizations are nonprofit and rely on grants from the local government and donations and support from community members.
Rail-trail organizations are most likely to work within corridors or sections of the trail rather than the whole trail all at once. The P2P has seven trails within its corridor. Five are in West Virginia: the North Bend Rail Trail, the Harrison North Rail Trail, the West Fork River Trail, the Marion County Trail (MCTrail), and the Mon River Rail Trail. Two are in Pennsylvania: the Sheepskin Rail Trail and the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.
The Rails-To-Trails Conservancy went through an extensive mapping process to see what already exists and where efforts for construction are being made. Sectioning the trails into corridors is a way to identify, organize and then prioritize projects on a smaller scale. However, this can create the issue of one corridor securing funding while its corresponding corridor may be far behind in the acquisition process.
Belling said the process of gaining access to the land and securing funding starts with negotiations with private and public land owners, but after getting an appraisal and agreeing on a purchase price, the organization has to generate a proposal for funding from the local government, and that can be shot down. Government grants can be hard to secure.
The MRTC holds fundraising events throughout the year, especially when the weather warms up and trail-use increases, in order to find funding and secure new donors. The organization also writes letters of support and advocates with surrounding states.
Kent Spellman, the founder of the North Bend Rail Trail and a former WV Rails-To-Trails Conservancy consultant, said a large role in developing rail-trails is negotiating. Rail-trail organizations typically deal with a mix of private property owners and large railroad corporations such as CSX, a major railroad company that owns more than 2,000 miles of track in West Virginia.
The Rails to Trails Conservancy began negotiations with CSX in 2016. Over the course of three years, they negotiated the acquisition of 11 CSX parcels between Parkersburg and Fairmont. The MRTC conducted appraisals on all 11 parcels and secured Transportation Alternatives grant awards for six of them. Environmental assessment funding was also secured and Purchase-Sale Agreements were in draft form for those six.
But in 2017, the CEO of CSX Hunter Harrison, who was progressive about selling off abandoned corridors, died. In November 2019, the MRTC was notified that CSX had withdrawn all 11 parcels from the negotiations table.
“The sections included an extension of the western end of the North Bend Rail-Trail from I-77 to a Park and Ride at the intersection of [routes] 50 and 47 on the edge of the city; an extension of the eastern end of the North Bend River Trail from Wilsonburg to Adamston on the west side of Clarksburg; several parcels in downtown Clarksburg that would have made connecting the Harrison South Rail-Trail with downtown Clarksburg possible; and several corridor parcels in Fairmont that would have connected the West Fork River Rail Trail south of Fairmont with the MCTrail north of Fairmont and then the Mon River Rail Trail. That would have left only one three-mile-long section from Spelter to Haywood left to acquire from a private owner other than CSX,” Spellman said.
Though there would still be work to do on the Sheepskin Trail, if the negotiations had not been taken off the table, there would have only been a little over three miles to acquire from a private property owner to complete the West Virginia side of the P2P.
On many accounts, property disputes create the most significant challenges for rail trail expansions. Legal battles regarding land ownership can greatly stall the construction of the trails.
For example, according to Tawney Mangus, a 74-year-old resident of Clendenin, a railroad that runs along the back of her property has been abandoned since 1979, and the rail bank along the railroad reverted back to the private property owners. Now, the Elk River Rail Trail is in the planning process of development and Mangus and many other residents could lose direct access to their properties if a trail was constructed. The residents use a one-lane access road, which would become the trail, cutting off all vehicle use. Mangus and the other residents are worried they won’t be able to get to their homes. The trail developers have provided access solutions, but Mangus and other residents aren’t satisfied.
“This area where they want to put the trail in, there is nothing for 28.75 miles,” Mangus said. The road is fairly remote and doesn’t get much traffic besides the residents. “I’m not against rail-trails … but I’ve lived here for 12 years and have only seen one bicyclist. I mean it’s pretty but there’s nothing.”
According to Kenneth Tawney, president of the Elk River Foundation, issues like this don’t come up as often as they used to, but still greatly slow the progress of trail development.
“Depending on who you talk to depends on the history you get,” Tawney said. He said Mangus’ concern may have to be resolved in court because the legal rights to the land are in question, but he maintained that the residents wouldn’t lose any property and would be given continued access to their homes.
Belling and Spellman said there are several similar cases in which property owners believe they own the land, but actually don’t and have no jurisdiction or legal right over it.
Kelly Pack, the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy senior director of trail development, said from the 80s to the 90s to the early 2000s, the challenges were more about convincing the public that trails were beneficial to them. Today the land acquisition is the challenge.
“Finding the funds to design and build the trail [is] a lot different than it was 20 or 30 years ago,” Pack said. “There just weren’t as many regulatory barriers and factors that existed to acquire in corridors, and it wasn’t as expensive.”
There are still some communities that don’t see trail construction as a high priority. But enthusiasm for rail-trails has grown in recent years, according to Spellman, who said several communities began to see the drawbacks of abandoned railroads running through their towns. They provided opportunities for graffiti, underage drinking, land destruction and other types of damage. Trails became the solution. Rail-trail leaders and advocates say community support is essential in the construction process of rail trail development.
With expansion, more communities have the opportunity to become “trail towns,” which are hubs of trail-related tourism. Fairmont is working to gain additional property to expand its rail-trail system. Securing property is a physical component of expansion. But once it’s secured, the process of engineering planning, environmental research and approval of construction begins. And this is where location-specific challenges start to rise.
Location challenges
Most rail-trails are built in sections with the “easier” construction being finished first. Many sections of the trail corridors contain bridges, which would have to be torn down and replaced. Demolition and reconstruction can be costly.
In Pennsylvania, The Fayette County Commision is adamant about completing construction on the Sheepskin Trail. Cawlyer said the engineering and construction of the trail was fully taken over by Fayette County and the Sheepskin Trail Organization now focuses on bringing together communities that connect along the trail.
Several segments of the trail contain bridges and environmental barriers that are slowing down trail construction. Several segments of the Sheepskin Trail contain bridges that have been decommissioned and have to be removed and reconstructed.
There are also several stream crossings along the Sheepskin Trail, and it is unknown at this time if those stream crossings are suitable for trail-use. Investigations are ongoing to determine the adequacy of existing structures.
Along with the reconstruction of bridges and other structures, most segments of the trail require fencing, paving, surfacing, crosswalk painting, signage, erosion control to be usable.
What can be done?
A feasibility study completed in 2018 by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy finds that the gaps on the P2P trail can be closed.
This study, combined with the Sheepskin Trail Feasibility Study, also completed in 2018, presents the first comprehensive analysis of existing conditions and recommendations for closing the gaps. These studies estimate that with a coordinated effort at the local, regional and state level, a completed P2P is achievable within a decade.
The study presents the blueprint to make it happen, section by section, identifying funding sources, partnership opportunities, and the planning and municipal processes required to complete the undeveloped gaps.
Belling said community support is essential in the construction process of rail trail development. The easiest way to do this is to use trails in a safe and responsible manner. Volunteering or becoming a member of a rail trail board and reporting when the trails are being misused are excellent ways to show support for rail trails and help in the construction process.
“The most significant way to show support is to make donations and attend fundraising events,” Belling said. Construction can occur faster with financial donations from the community. Trail leaders and advocates have no idea how much more funding is needed for the finalization of the P2P trail, especially because prices continue to rise, but completing the fourth-longest rail trail in the nation is within reach.