PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — After heavy use of Pennsylvania's land and water trails during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state has developed its first extensive plan to better manage and grow them.
Cindy Adams Dunn, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said the Land and Water Trail Network Strategic Plan is a blueprint for improving access to the diverse trail network in the state.
“We have 12,000 miles of land and water trails in Pennsylvania,” she said. “We’re really a state full of trail assets. We learned through the pandemic that people really need to get outside and walk.
“It’s the best and healthiest thing people can do. With people’s busy lives, that trail needs to be close to home.”
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Dunn said one of the progressive goals of the plan is to achieve equity in terms of access.
“Manage these, advance these, close the trail gaps and then meet the aspiration of the trail plan, which is to bring a trail within 10 minutes of every Pennsylvanian,” Dunn explained.
“This has an element for diversity, equity and inclusion. We’ve been doing an analysis across the state to see who’s not well served by trails. There are people not well served by a trail network now in both urban and rural areas.”
She said some of the big holes in that network are in the Philadelphia area.
“One of our top 10 trail gaps is at Spring Garden Street,” Dunn said. “We’ve got about 2.2 miles to connect the Schuylkill River Trail and the East Coast Greenway. So, that’s a statewide priority.
“The Wissahickon Gateway, which is south of Manyunk -- another big priority. In Morrisville borough, we have a priority trail gap to really extend our Delaware Canal State Park tow path and continue that down into Morrisville.”
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She said the Circuit Trails is another avenue identified for attention.
The regional urban network connects people to jobs, communities and parks in the greater Philadelphia and South Jersey areas.
Dunn concluded that the vision behind the state’s plan is to open access to all to transportation, recreation and healthy lifestyles the trails can offer.