Published Saturday, July 6, 2002
Herald Staff Writer
Shenango Valley residents will be able to walk a path will connect them to all the commercial areas of the region and keep them healthy to boot.
"It's meant to provide alternative modes of travel for people," said Dan Gracenin, assistant director of the Mercer County Regional Planning Commission, referring to the street-based system. Construction is to start next spring.
The Shenango Valley Bike/Pedestrian System will make an X in the valley, intersecting at Forker Boulevard and Highland Road in Sharon. The east-west corridor will begin at Highland at the Hickory High School entrance and will extend west to Jefferson Avenue, Hull Street and Sharpsville Avenue, ending up on Clark Street. It will be about 3.6 miles.
The north-south corridor will begin at Indiana Avenue at Mercer Avenue, in Farrell, then follow Park Avenue and Crowder Street, Sharon, eventually connecting to Service Avenue in Sharon, and then Forker Boulevard. From there, the path will lead to Hazen Road, Seventh Street and Main Street in Sharpsville, and eventually will end up at the old Erie Canal lock at the Sharpsville Recreation Area. It will be about 5.6 miles long.
The commission received a $210,000 grant from PennDOT to construct missing sidewalk links and put signs by roadsides and paint markers on roads for pedestrians and bicyclists. The Mercer County Regional Council of Governments was the applicant for the planning commission and is also project sponsor. The planning commission will facilitate the project.
"We did the planning for it and employed the consultant who created the plan," said Gracenin, adding that providing the plan's engineering counts as part of the in-kind match for the 80/20 grant. In other words, the recipients have to provide 20 percent of the amount they receive in local matching funds, which include in -kind work, Gracenin explained.
The Shenango Valley Pedestrian Path will pass by several schools, such as Farrell, Sharon, Hermitage and Sharpsville, and by several recreation areas, including Buhl Farm park and the Sharpsville Area Recreation Park.
"We had a sit-down with communities and schools in the area, because we felt there was a need for this in the area," said Gracenin, adding this occurred about a year and a half ago.
"We thought, 'Let's connect some areas that would be of interest to people. Let's connect schools with parks, residential areas to get you to downtown Sharon and the mall, to connect valley residents to commercial hubs," Gracenin explained.
The north-south path will also hook up with the planned Trout Island Trail by the Shenango Reservoir.
"It will hopefully make it so people have no excuse not to exercise and make it easier for fisherman to get to good fishing spots and to bird watching spots," said Steven Theiss, member of Mercer County Rails to Trails, which began in 1982.
The group is responsible for the Trout Island Trail project, which will run along the Shenango Reservoir from the Mercer Avenue parking lot to the Trout Island Road parking lot on an abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad bed with a portion alongside the old lock in Sharpsville. Phase I will be about 2.6 miles long. The group eventually would like to build a walkway across and around the other side of the reservoir, partially following West Lake Road, about six miles long.
"We were looking for a project on federal land, and this path will mostly be on the (Army) Corps of Engineers' property," Theiss said. "This way people can walk, run and bicycle without worrying about traffic.
The Trout Island Trail project received $180,000 from PennDOT and $103,000 from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. It is also due to start next spring.
"The experience places have with this project is immensely popular," said Denny Puco, director of the Mercer County Regional Planning Commission. "It's becoming a measurer of whether or not you have a quality community."