Export business owners spar with Westmoreland Heritage Trail officials over short extension
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Using leftover state grant money to extend the Westmoreland Heritage Trail by 750 feet east in Export seemed like an easy decision for council members when it was proposed.
That is no longer the case.
“Westmoreland Coal Co. got hundreds of thousands of tons of coal through there, and now we’re having trouble getting a few bikes through,” Export Councilman John Nagoda said at this week’s council meeting.
Nagoda was joined by several business owners who had concerns about the trail extension taking up valuable parking in the borough-owned lot that provides the majority of spaces for people visiting, shopping and eating downtown.
“Parking is an issue,” said Tony DeCesare, owner of Jigger’s Pub as well as the former Master Auto Supply building across the street, which he plans to convert into a restaurant. “I think it’s a mistake to extend the trail at this time. Parking is getting worse, and it’s going to keep getting worse once the trail is extended.”
According to the plans put forth by trail officials, the extension would affect 11 parking spots in the lot.
“I think it’s an exaggeration to say a lot of the parking will be lost,” said trail representative and county parks planning coordinator Jeff Richards.
DeCesare and Wade’s Breakfast & Grille owner Karen Wade said they were both caught off guard earlier in the week when they arrived in the morning to find orange emergency cones marking off areas for trail construction that appeared to affect a much larger number of spaces.
“The plan is for the trail parking to be at the eastern end, and we have to enforce it,” Nagoda said.
“I don’t see how,” DeCesare countered.
Westmoreland Heritage Trail President Stan Rudge told council members he did not think trail users would be taking up much space outside the future designated area.
“Bikers want miles,” Rudge said. “Right now, the train ends at Lincoln (Avenue), and that’s why you’re getting an influx of cars parking there. If the trail is extended 750 feet, they’re going to park down there because that’s 750 extra feet they can ride.”
Trail officials have until the end of the year to either use the remaining grant funding or lose it.
Councilwoman Melanie Litz suggested borough officials meeting with the technical partners in the project — trail officials and the project engineers — to look at their options and determine how to preserve as many parking spaces as possible.
Export officials would someday like to fully pave the borough parking lot, and they were hoping to find the funds as part of a $2.6 million grant application to the state Department of Community and Economic Development. In September, however, state officials told them the multimodal grant was not meant for projects such as a parking lot, and they would have to resubmit the application without it.
And while the new $1.95 million grant application still includes things like a trail landing on Lincoln Avenue, new sidewalks and bike racks, the raft of downtown improvements would be tied together with the paving of the parking lot, achieving the borough’s long-term goal of a unified, pedestrian-friendly downtown.
Solicitor Wes Long estimated the paving work would cost about $567,000, money that would now need to come from the borough or some source other than a multimodal state grant.
DeCesare believes the paving is a more worthwhile goal than extending the trail less than two-tenths of a mile, particularly with the amount of work he has put into renovating the former Master Auto Supply building.
“I have a lot of money tied up in that building,” DeCesare said. “I can put 200 people in there, and there’s no place for them to park.”
DeCesare said he has blueprints ready for the new building, but he will not file them with the borough if the trail extension goes ahead as proposed.
“If you extend it now, you’re pretty much landlocked in. It’s there forever,” he said. “I just feel like we’re jumping the gun.”