Work on final leg of the Little Kanawha Connector bike trail to start | News and Sentinel


Three miles of county land between it and Rail Trail

PARKERSBURG - A bicycle and multi-use trail more than 15 years in the making is planned to be completed this year.
Parkersburg-based 3D Construction is slated to start work March 10 on a 3,400-foot segment extending the Little Kanawha Connector, which starts near Point Park, from near the East Street Bridge along East and Mary streets and West Virginia 47 out to the city limits at Corning Park.
Plans for the path were submitted to the state in the late '90s, but funding for completion has only become available in recent years, Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell said.

Article Photos

Photo by Evan Bevins
Parkersburg Development Director Rickie Yeager shows where the extension of the Little Kanawha Connector bicycle and multi-use trail will be placed this spring and summer along Mary Street.

"It goes back a ways," he said. "The whole purpose was to get it to the (North Bend Rail Trail) out there by the college."
The 72-mile trail covering portions of Wood, Ritchie, Doddridge and Harrison counties ends on Happy Valley Road near West Virginia University at Parkersburg. That's about three miles from the end of the Little Kanawha Connector once the project is completed this summer.
"Now the city's done all they can do when that's done," said Kim Coram, a Parkersburg city councilwoman and coordinator for the Wood County Alternative Transportation Council.
Then it will be up to the county, including the council Coram heads, to make the final connection.
"This three-mile connection connects us to a 1,400-mile network," she said, referring to a network of trails winding through 52 counties in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York.

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