Grant Awarded for Wissahickon Gateway Connection

If you’ve taken the Schuylkill trail from Center City out through East Falls and Manayunk, chances are you reached one intersection in particular and either scratched your head or swerved to avoid an accident. The Wissahickon Gateway section may soon get safer thanks to a grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). The DCNR recently announced grants including a grant for $50,000 to the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, which will be matched by the City, to fund an Engineering Assessment of the Wisshickon Gateway Connection.

Considered by all Trail and Bike Groups in the City as one of the most dangerous and therefore more critical sections of the Schuylkill Trail, this grant will allow a thorough analysis of design options for the trail. A complex area for trail design, it includes on and off ramps for I76, a SEPTA bus transfer center, a train station, the convergence of Ridge Avenue, Main Street, Kelly Drive, as well as two trail systems – the Wissahickon Trail and Schuylkill River Trail. Concept plans for the gateway can be seen at http://www.destinationschuylkillriver.org/docs/gateway_rpt.pdf.

The Complete the Trail coalition, www.completethetrail.org, has brought groups along the Philadelphia section of the Schuylkill to work together to complete the Trail. The coalition has identified nine trail projects that, if constructed, would complete Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River Trail from Delaware County to Montgomery County.