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The Point Marion section of the Sheepskin Trail stretches for 2.3 miles and connects to the Nilan community in Springhill Township to form the southern extension of the trail. Fayette County commissioners are requesting $1.25 million in funding to complete that portion of the trail.
Fayette County commissioners are seeking a $1.25 million grant for the south extension of the Sheepskin Trail in Point Marion.
“Construction of this section will definitely further the continued momentum we have built over the past two and a half years,” said Art. Capella said. .
The southern extension is along Nilan Road, which runs 2.3 miles parallel to the Cheat River in Spring Hill Township and ends at the Lake Lynn Power Plant in West Virginia on the border.
To support this development, commissioners voted Thursday to approve an application for $1 million through the Smart Transportation Livable Communities Grant Program. It also approved his second grant application, matching his $250,000 Smart Transportation Livable Communities Grant to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
“We’re leveraging grants for a wide range of transportation areas, not just highways and bridges,” Secretary Vince Visites said.
Bisites thanked the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission, of which he is vice chair, and PennDOT, which partnered with Fayette County to apply for the federal grant.
“Hopefully, it will help speed up the process of building trails,” Bisites said, adding that funding sources like the Smart Transportation Livable Communities Grant have not always been tapped into in the past. He added that it was. “We will continue to seek funding like this more broadly.”
Visites will eventually complete the Sheepskin Trail and connect it to the Great Allegheny Passage while making progress on the trail section through Uniontown at a cost of $1.3 million and the $1.25 million requested for the southern extension. He said he would seek additional grants to connect (GAP) at Dunbar.
Once completed, the Sheepskin Trail will run 54 miles from Wheeler Bottom in Dunbar Township and the Borough of Dunbar through numerous communities to the Borough of Point Marion, Capela said.
“This is the missing link to a nationally significant trail system called the American Discovery Trail that traverses all the way to California,” Capella said.
In addition to the trail connecting to GAP, Capela said it will also link to the West Virginia Railroad Trail System, a 78-mile trail that connects to Morgantown, as well as the Yogiogheny, Monongahela and Cheat River watersheds. Recreational greenway.
He added that the trail is a major trail gap in the “Parkersburg to Pittsburgh” section of the more than 1,400 miles of connected trails the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition is building.
“Once construction is complete, it will really benefit the county by connecting the two trail systems,” Bisites said.
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