Despite popularity, aging trails subject to all manner of abuse

The people involved in overseeing and maintaining Western Pennsylvania’s trail systems nearly all said that cooperation is key in keeping the trails clean, welcoming and open.

Along the Five Star Trail that runs from Youngwood to Greensburg, chapter President Vaughn Neill is working with a few dozen volunteers on fence maintenance, planter boxes and other trail-related projects.

“We have some equipment we can use to patch little potholes, but if those get too big, we call on the local municipality,” Neill said.

Along the six miles of the Coal & Coke Trail, which links Mt. Pleasant and Scottdale, the heavy lifting is also typically done by the local government’s public works crew.

“We’ve been very fortunate to get a lot of help from our local municipalities,” Coal & Coke Chapter Vice President Bob Keeler said. “They’ve been very involved since the beginning of the trail and continue to be.”

Because of its proximity to the riverfront, the Three Rivers Heritage Trail has run into flooding and stormwater issues in recent years, said Kelsey Ripper, executive director of Friends of the Riverfront. Friends of the Riverfront has been raising money since 2019 to address flooding and drainage in Baldwin near Hays Woods. Construction officially will start in the fall and wrap in about two weeks.

“Our trails are aging. We started installing trails maybe 25 years ago, and they need (to be) maintained. They are getting to their lifetime,” Ripper said.

Ripper added that the trail is working on several extensions at the moment, including a stretch from Millvale to Freeport and a connector from the Homestead section of the Great Allegheny Passage to the Trafford portion of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail. Design and engineering is also underway for new trails in East Deer, Tarentum and Cheswick.

For Stan Rudge, president of the group that maintains the Westmoreland Heritage Trail, the regular occurrence of downed trees is a problem, particularly this past spring and early summer, which have brought heavy rain and occasional high winds to the region.

Similarly, Bryan Perry, executive director of the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy, said the jobs that GAP volunteers are most commonly tasked with — apart from grass cutting and weed trimming — include clearing fallen trees, repairing flooding damage to the trail or its culverts, filling in holes between resurfacing years and addressing fallen rocks or mudslides.

Litter and vandalism

For Roaring Run Watershed Association President Ken Kaminski, litter is the biggest issue. Dumpsters and restrooms along the trail had to be removed because of abuse.

He said trail volunteers would find litter in the restroom, and people would bring their personal trash to the dumpsters.

“Some people, they don’t respect what’s there,” he said. “And that’s everyone’s trail — not just ours.”

Two things that seem to be a common headache for trail volunteers are vandalism and trail etiquette.

“Vandalism almost never goes away,” Neill said.

This spring along the Monroeville section of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail, someone sawed the stop signs from two posts at the Saunders Station Road crossing.

“For us, it’s vandalism and people picking up after their pets,” Rudge said. “But general trail etiquette is something people should be more aware of. We have walkers, and we have bikers.”

Rudge’s volunteer group recently secured a grant to install signage reminding trail users about common courtesies such as keeping to the right, passing on the left and keeping pets on a leash no longer than 6 feet.

And as the Great Allegheny Passage winds its way into more rural territory, volunteers occasionally get reports of people taking quads and all-terrain vehicles onto the trail.

“There have been some parts of Fayette County and parts of Elizabeth Township where they’ve had that problem,” said Leslie Pierce, business manager for the Regional Trail Corp., which helps maintain sections of the GAP, Westmoreland Heritage, Coal & Coke and Five Star trails. “We’ve been lucky to partner with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, and they do some patrols along the trail areas.”

Keeler said it is a seasonal issue along the Coal & Coke Trail.

“When there’s a lot of use on the trail, it hasn’t happened as often,” he said. “But in the offseason, it becomes a bigger issue.”

Patrick Varine, Quincey Reese and Megan Swift are Tribune-Review staff writers.