The stream of short-distance recreation seekers, well-stretched vacationers, and long distance-trekkers along the Great Allegheny Passage has swollen to some 750,000 a year. Thus, another group of enthusiasts also makes regular treks from town to town along the 150-mile trail between McKeesport PA and Cumberland MD, where it joins the C&O towpath to the District of Columbia.
These others are professional community revitalization and economic development experts. They have been measuring the impact of the project and providing guidance to the communities along the Passage that are finding a new source of economic sustenance from the income it is attracting.
From the growing number of visitors–based on trail counts, intercept surveys, questionnaires, and conversations with business owners–the Trail Town Program estimates some $12 million in spending in 2007 in the six towns through which the trail passes in Westmoreland, Fayette, and Somerset counties. That spending fed about $3 million in annual wages to 31 new businesses and 107 jobs created to serve trail users in West Newton, Connellsville, Ohiopyle, Rockwood, Confluence, and Meyersdale.
“People on the Passage stop, stay overnight, eat, and shop, and they are bringing economic development to the communities,” says Cathy McCollom, Trail Town program director. “That spending improves the economies of the towns.” And it also increases the need and value of expert advice to identify who is using the trail (a growing audience of college-educated, middle-aged baby boomers approaching retirement with disposable income), what they are looking for as part of the trek, and what the towns need (comfortable lodging, satisfying meals, and interesting shops) to capture the traffic that passes along southwestern Pennsylvania’s “green highway.”
To provide such advice, the Trail Town Program works with the Progress Fund to document the needs–and find resources to assist the communities. Working with the National Student Conservation Association, the program has opened a Trail Town Outreach Corps in Connellsville that places five interns in the communities to give more legs to the effort.
“It’s a perfect synergy of a great market, a growing opportunity, and a spectacular natural environment,” McCollom says.
Source: Trail Town Program, Cathy McCollom
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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