Riverfront park plans to connect city trails

If every resident of the Pittsburgh put a few dollars toward connecting the communities on… If every resident of the Pittsburgh put a few dollars toward connecting the communities on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers, they’d still come up short for funding the renovations – tens of millions of dollars short.

But thanks to city planners at the non-profit Riverlife Task Force and the Port Authority, state, federal and private-donor dollars should connect the city within the next four years.

The Riverlife Task Force is funneling about $55 million into their Three Rivers Park project with the vision of transforming Pittsburgh’s riverfronts into recreational hotspots and connecting the metropolitan area’s 2.3 million people.

The park plans focus on adding a pedestrian path to the West End Bridge, which spans the Monongahela from the West End to the North Shore, renovating Point State Park Downtown, lighting the confluence of the rivers and turning the Mon Wharf landing, now strictly a flood-prone parking lot, into a scenic park.

The construction targets the Eliza Furnace bicycle trail, which runs along the Monongahela. The trail is the last leg of a bike trek that runs from Pittsburgh all the way to Washington, D.C., but it has some noticeable breaks on Pittsburgh’s riverfronts.

The Task Force’s projects will fill these gaps, creating a loop around the riverfronts for the trail.

Task Force planner Chuck Alcorn said the trail will give Pittsburgh residents – including students – more access to the city. An Oakland resident himself, he said he already uses the trail regularly to ride out of the east side of the city.

A festival ground and a new fountain for children to run through will grace Downtown’s Point State Park by 2008, the city’s 250th anniversary.

And the Mon Wharf park construction will raise the riverbank a few more inches, reducing its chance of frequent flooding – a problem the area faces five to seven times a year, Alcorn said.

State funds and private donors will support the projects, with $35 million going toward Point State Park and $3 million designated for the Mon Wharf.

The West End Pedestrian Bridge, an addition onto the now vehicle-only West End Bridge, will round out the 13-mile riverfront trail and complete the circuit for biking around the city.

This last phase of the Task Force’s immediate plans is estimated to cost between $10 million and $17 million.

The future West End Pedestrian Bridge and completed Eliza Furnace Trail are not the only ways for Pittsburghers to converge onto the North Shore of the city without a car.

The North Shore has been booming in recent years, housing Del Monte company headquarters, PNC Park and Heinz Field, the Carnegie Science Center, a proposed slots-only casino and new amphitheater and a host of restaurants and bars.

To accommodate this growth, the Port Authority will spend $435 million of federal and state funding in expanding the T line across to the region, according to Port Authority spokesman Bob Grove.

The T currently functions as a light-rail, mass transit system running from Gateway Center Downtown, across the Monongahela River and into the South Hills.

Crews broke ground last month to extend the system into the North Side, with three new stops planned along the shoreline. They’re currently digging the train-receiving and -launching stations under Stanwix Street and across the Allegheny River.

September will usher in tunnel boring beneath the Allegheny, and the full extension should be open by June 2011.

Once finished, the line will run 1.3 miles through the North Side, with new stations at Gateway Center, to the west of PNC Park, near Heinz Field and at the pedestrian bridge.

Grove said the Port Authority estimates 14,000 riders per day will utilize the line by the year 2035.

“More and more people are headed to the North Shore, it’s a destination for everybody,” Grove said on why the Port Authority is focusing on the area. “For students, it has an entertainment component.”

When asked if similar T-line expansions are in the works for the Oakland area, with its plethora of academic, employment and cultural draws, he said that nothing is in the works right now.