Politics & Government
Cynwyd Heritage Trail Grant Application Submission Approved
Grant money would be used to devise a plan to connect and extend the trail.
The Lower Merion Board of Commissioners on Wednesday night authorized submission of a grant application to create a plan to connect the to the Righter’s Ferry Trail, and also extend the trail to Bala Station and City Avenue.
The grant submission was approved as part of the board’s Consent Calendar vote, which includes all agenda items in which a commissioner has not requested a separate discussion of the agenda item.
As part of the second phase of a $10 million Regional Trails Program, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is accepting grant applications for trail-related planning studies, Chris Leswing, the township’s assistant director of planning, said in a memorandum which was included as part of the agenda for the board’s Building and Planning Committee meeting on Wednesday night.
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In the grant application, the township will seek $40,000 in funding in order to complete the Cynwyd Heritage Trail by connecting it to the Righter’s Ferry Trail—which is required to be constructed by Righter’s Ferry Associates along the Pencoyd waterfront—and to also extend the trail to Bala Station and City Avenue, Leswing said in the memo.
The township would provide a $10,000 grant match from unbudgeted funds in the Capital Improvement Plan.
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The 2009 Cynwyd Heritage Trail Master Plan recommended that a multi-use trail be constructed between the Cynwyd Trail and the Righter’s Ferry Trail through the 9-acre parcel donated to the township by Tom Connelly in 2006, but making the Connelly connection requires a high level of study because there is a significant grade change between the Righter’s Ferry Trail and Cynwyd Trail, Leswing said in the memo.
The grant funds would allow the township to study the best way to solve the grade change with a multi-use trail, and explore extending the Cynwyd Trail a third of a mile from Cynwyd Station to Bala Station at City Avenue, the memo said. Extending the trail requires extensive study because of the presence of an active rail next to the trail, the memo said.