Jordan Trail project among 37 miles of paths to get funds
Plans in N. Catasauqua, Easton also included in over $1M for Lehigh Valley
Allentown officials envision a 14-mile pedestrian trail through the Jordan Creek Greenway that will eventually connect Center City to the Trexler Nature Preserve in Schnecksville.
On Thursday, they got a step closer to that reality with a $500,000 grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources that will fund the construction of 1.8 miles of trail from West Turner Street to MacArthur Road. The project will include lighting, wheelchair access, landscaping and signs.
The grant is through the DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program, which on Thursday announced 41 grants worth $7.6 million to build 37 miles of new trails across the state. The Lehigh Valley received more than $1 million for projects in
Northampton and Lehigh counties.
The Lehigh Valley projects include $500,000 for North Catasauqua Borough to build 1.8 miles of trail from the Northampton County line to West 10th Street in Northampton Borough, closing a gap in the Delaware and Lehigh Canal Trail.
There was also $50,000 awarded to study the development of a pedestrian bridge over the Lehigh River in Easton.
“This year since the COVID pandemic hit, we gained a new understanding of just how essential the outdoors are to people,” said Cindy Adams Dunn, secretary of the DCNR. “It’s created some challenges, but it’s a nice problem to have. People need the outdoors, they are drawn to the outdoors in amazing numbers.”
Dunn announced the grants during a news conference Thursday afternoon in Jordan Park.
Some of state’s trails, like the D&L, have seen usage up nearly 200 percent this year, she said.
The trails are a multimillion dollar asset to the communities they cut through, creating tourism revenue and improving a community’s quality of life, Dunn explained. City officials hope an expanded Jordan Creek Greenway trail will become such an asset for Allentown.
“We are seeing that phenomenon along the D&L and in Jim Thorpe,” Dunn said. “The goal is to get Allentown’s Jordan Greenway all the way up to the Trexler Preserve. It will generate dollars, quality of life, and make Allentown a place where people want to live, work and play.”
Karen El-Chaar, the city’s director of parks and recreation, said the latest grant brings Allentown to the $2.6 million it will cost to develop the new section. She expects the work to go out to bid by the end of the year.
Construction could start by the late spring or early summer with the section to be completed by 2022.
Eventually, the Jordan Creek trail will connect to planned Auburn Cross Trails Park in south Allentown and then to the D&L.
The new trail will be 8 feet to 10 feet wide and be for both pedestrians and cyclists. For Allentown’s portion of the project, city officials want trail users be able to go from Trexler Park in the far West End, to MacArthur Road, El-Chaar said.
Also Thursday, the Wildlands Conservancy received $20,000 to prepare a management plan for Jordan Creek Greenway.
In a separate project, Allentown is designing a trail that will connect 10th Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard to the Lehigh Parkway. Allentown received a grant from the state Department of Community & Economic Development for the $125,000 design work on that project.