Grant money sought for Montco trail completions

NORRISTOWN Montgomery County is applying for $3.7 million in grants from the state and the William Penn Foundation to complete key links in its regional trail system.

The five projects are: extending the Pennypack Trail to Bucks County and Philadelphia; building a connector on the Schuylkill River Trail in Lower Pottsgrove; extending the Cross-County trail to Erdenheim Farm; designing a new trail around Erdenheim Farm to link to the Wissahickon Trail; and designing a Bridgeport/Upper Merion portion of the Chester Valley Trail.

The county has committed to spend $4.1 million on trail improvements in 2015.

Michael Stokes, assistant director of the county Planning Commission, said that these five projects would tackle "the hard trail miles."

"The low-hanging fruit was done years ago," he told the county commissioners Thursday. "You are accepting the difficult connections that are where people live and where people want to walk."

The Planning Commission is also working on a countywide greenway study, surveying important open spaces across 26 municipalities "to create a cohesive system, and study and evaluate how to manage those lands properly."

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources had already provided a grant for the greenway study. But now it has asked the county to put together a "guidebook" to help other counties do the same. - Jessica Parks