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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Marcellus Shale To Fund Greenway Plans in Bushkill and Plainfield Townships

One of Jacobsburg Park's many trails
Tonight, Northampton County Council will vote on whether to spend $77,334.00 in Marcellus Shale funds to finance engineering plans to design a 1.8 mile-long greenway in Bushkill and Plainfield Townships. Hanover Engineering was selected from 98 different engineering engineering firms that had expressed interest.

This is part of a trail known as the Two Rivers Area Trail System. So far, 18 of the 27 mile system is complete. It extends north from Easton along the Bushkill Creek to Tatamy. It picks up again in Stcokertown, and extends north to Pen Argyl. The ultimate goal is to connect Stockertown with Tatamy, and go north from Pen Argyl to the Appalachian Trail.

Marcellus Shale is controversial to many environmentalists, but the impact fees are generating many open space projects.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bernie, this trail segment will link Belfast Junction at the connection of Stockertown and Plainfield Township's trails, to Jacobsburg Park, by going under Route 33 along side the cement route, or whatever that railroad spur is called.

This is a key connection. The Two Rivers Plan sees Jacobsburg as a hub, and links like this as spokes.

Bernie O'Hare said...

I think they need easements from Hercules Cement, right? This is very cool.

Anonymous said...

Um, maybe yes, maybe no. They are avoiding much of Hercules land by using the Rt 33 PennDOT ROW. They need an easement from Norfolk Southern. I'm thinking they may not hit Hercules' land, but I could be wrong.

Originally, it was going to to up the creek on Hercules land, criss-crossing the stream using bridges. That was scrapped as more expensive and more difficult to realize. It would have been a nicer trail, but it is really cool either way.