Township eyes grant for 2 projects
A pair of projects are in the works for one local trail.
UPPER GWYNEDD >> If you live in Upper Gwynedd and have felt a need to get outdoors more and more lately, you’re not alone.
And a pair of projects now in the works are for you, as township officials are discussing upgrades to one local trail while planning more.
“There are no good sides to COVID, but one thing that has really happened is that park and trail use has blossomed,” said Township Manager Sandra Brookley Zadell.
“And I don’t think this love that people are finding for the outdoors is going to just disappear when COVID is over,” she said.
In late 2019 the township authorized a match of up to $15,000 to go toward a joint study being done to plan roughly ten miles of possible Liberty Bell Trail portions running through Franconia, Hatfield, and Upper Gwynedd townships and Hatfield, Lansdale, North Wales, Souderton and Telford boroughs. In late 2020 the joint project received roughly $113,000 in grant funding from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to study that trail network, and Zadell and township engineer Isaac Kessler reported on two related projects on Monday night.
“There are two projects, that are kind of joined at the hip there, for improvements that we want to do,” Kessler said.
“One is a township project, in the budget for this year, which is to to add a crosswalk, as well as some illuminated signing, and some advanced warning signage for the location of the crosswalk, to make that as safe as possible,” he said.
Those crosswalk improvements are proposed to be installed on the northwest corner of the intersection of North Wales Road and Moyer Boulevard, where staff have noticed cars parking along North Wales Road that can block sightlines for cars turning off of Moyer, and high traffic leads to long wait times for those crossing. The
crosswalk will require PennDOT approval, which Kessler said is already in progress, and “kind of attached with that one” is a larger project at the same intersection, which would be done in partnership with Wissahickon Trails, the former Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association.
“Using some grant funding, a Montco 2040 grant, for a trail head to be constructed for some parking spots, a bike rack, using some green infrastructure to provide a safe place for folks to park and use the trail there,” he said.
That new trail head would be one of few that exist along the current route of the township’s stretch of the “Green Ribbon Trail,” which starts at the township Parkside Place complex and links to further trail connections running southeast toward Philadelphia.
“The Green Ribbon Trail doesn’t have too many trail heads that have a few parking spots — some of them are just pull-offs on the road — so it’s an exciting project, to hopefully make a nice, safe, usable, and accessible trail head,” Kessler said.
Since the trail head would go on property owned by Wissahickon Trails, that body’s board of directors would also need to approve that part of the project, Zadell told the board.
Early estimates are that the trailhead project would cost just shy of $99,000, and the grant application seeks
$79,000 from the county, with the township providing a match of $19,750, according to the manager and details in the board’s meeting materials packet for Feb. 8. Leadership from the Wissahickon Trails group have indicated that group may be able to help with fundraising for the match, Zadell said, but no contribution amount has been guaranteed or earmarked.
“We will still be installing the pedestrian signalized crossing, as well as the crosswalk, regardless of whether we move forward with the grant or not,” she said.
“There’s still a little more work to be done on this, but at this point, we wanted to make sure the board was able to see the project, understand the project, see the benefits, and the low cost,” Zadell said.
Commissioners President Liz McNaney said she appreciated hearing from Zadell as soon as the next round of county grants became available that the township was already eyeing projects.
No action was taken Monday night, but a formal vote on the resolution seeking the grant funding could be passed by Upper Gwynedd’s board during their Feb. 16 business meeting.
A second trail-related item was also discussed Monday night and could be approved next week, this one to hire Michael Baker Inc. as a consultant for the regional Liberty Bell Trail
feasibility study. Late last year the joint group of municipalities issued a request for proposals seeing such a consultant, Zadell told the board, and various township managers and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council helped vet the responses.
“It turned out that Michael Baker Inc., who is doing our Powerline Trail study, was the consultant selected by this group as well,” Zadell said.
“That’s good for Upper Gwynedd, in that we’ll have the same consultant working on the two studies,” she said.
Part of the services that firm will provide is an interactive online map where residents can click on various parts of the trail network and see questions, problems, or comments left by users. Another selling point, according to the manager, is a “virtual meeting room” feature which could allow the consultant to show details of the trail projects in an online setting if necessary.
Having that study in-hand could also help with future grant applications, Kessler added: “anything that separates you from the pack, with those grants, with any other application, is just a plus. Something like this goes a long way.”
The consultant contract carries a cost of $112,000 for the entire joint municipal group, of which Upper Gwynedd’s contribution will be $12,000, according to the manager; details on the study and those expected to perform it are also included in the board’s meeting materials for Feb. 8.
McNaney added that she had recently been at the intersection in question and had trouble crossing due to road traffic, but was impressed by the number of users.
“It was cold, but there were a lot of people using that trail,” McNaney said.
Zadell added that she and her family have often gone on hikes since the onset of the pandemic, and seen many more people enjoying the outdoors than in prior years.
“Places we used to go, that would have zero cars parked there, now we can’t get a parking spot. I’m glad for the trails of Pennsylvania that this has happened, but we are going to have to make some infrastructure changes to address this new need,” she said.