Original blog posted by Patrick Starr on 5 May 2025 for PEC
Credit: Lancaster County
At PEC, we pride ourselves on knowing Pennsylvania like few other organizations. Our statewide perspective is informed by engagement in communities and regions. Many of our staff are lifelong or long-time Pennsylvanians and that lived experience is invaluable. Case in point: although I’ve spent my adult life in Philadelphia (32 years in PEC’s Philly office), I grew up in Franklin County and my family relatives stretch from York to Huntingdon to Montour Counties.
Unsurprisingly, I offered several years ago to spearhead PEC’s recently published South Central Pennsylvania Trails Connectivity Assessment, focusing especially on a growing resource of multi-purpose trails in the region. I collaborated from the Spring of 2023 until March this year with my colleagues Helena Kotala and Ryan Kurtz, who provided GIS support, strategic guidance, and writing throughout the process.
The assessment focused on familiar territory including Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Gettysburg, Carlisle, Chambersburg, and Lebanon – the county seats of seven counties. I like to jokingly refer to it as the WGAL viewing area (Lancaster’s NBC affiliate). Due to its strong agrarian economy and locally grown industry, it was well served by railroads that built competing lines. Today, many are unused, and some are officially abandoned, creating an amazing opportunity for local initiatives to convert these corridors to beloved long-distance trails.
The opportunity we uncovered was a welcome surprise! Because of decades of hard work by volunteer groups and county agency staff, we identified four major “trunkline” trails and nearly two dozen connecting trails that, taken together, would be 400 miles of connected trails when completed. Incredibly, 165 miles are already built. The trunk lines we “discovered” are already familiar to residents and planners – the Cumberland Valley Rail Trail, the Lebanon Rail Trail, the Enola Low Grade/Northwest River Trail, and the York Heritage Trail. The future network would link key towns, historic sites, and state parks and forests serving a resident population of 1.9 million Pennsylvanians!
Credit: PEC
The envisioned 400-mile network, as one stakeholder said, would make south central PA a national destination for multi-day recreational riders. We at PEC couldn’t agree more. The region already hosts nationally significant and interstate natural surface trails such as the Appalachian Trail, the Mason-Dixon Trail, and the Horseshoe Trail. The 9/11 National Memorial Trail also traverses the region using some of the same multi-purpose trails. The “intersections” between these trails and others further enhances the national significance of the proposed network.
At the same time, new trail links will connect important communities with employment and economic activity, providing active and sustainable transportation alternatives to area residents. A key recommendation is to focus effort on connecting trails across county boundaries, as well as the mighty Susquehanna River. By focusing on two critical connections, the entire system would be enhanced and all connecting trail projects elevated in status! PEC proposes establishing a multi-stakeholder working group to focus on each critical connection that should include county agencies, land trusts, conservation landscapes, heritage areas, bicycle advocates, and trail groups.
One of these, the Cumberland-Dauphin Connection, would connect Carlisle to Harrisburg using a soon to be built utility bridge spanning the Susquehanna. This thirty-mile corridor would also link “downriver” through Dauphin County to connect with Lancaster’s beautiful Northwest River Trail, which in turn connects to Columbia. The Lancaster-York Connection is 18 miles of proposed trail that would result in significant upgrades on the iconic Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge to safely accommodate non-motorized users, somehow connect westward to York, and complete the Enola Low-Grade downriver to Turkey Hill.
I hope that the upshot of PEC’s Connectivity Assessment will encourage county agencies and area non-profit organizations to embrace a broader vision and work across existing boundaries. PEC’s natural role is to facilitate this kind of collaboration, and we intend to remain involved. PEC’s experience with the Circuit Trails, Industrial Heartlands Trails, and NEPA Trails Forum give us insight and expertise about how to succeed.
About Pennsylvania Environmental Council
The Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) protects and restores the natural and built environments through innovation, collaboration, education and advocacy. PEC believes in the value of partnerships with the private sector, government, communities and individuals to improve the quality of life for all Pennsylvanians.
Patrick Starr, Executive Vice President