State College eyes connection to Penn State’s West Campus through bike path
A bicycle path that will connect Penn State’s West Campus to a network of trails in State College and Ferguson Township is taking shape.
The Gill Street Bicycle Path has been on the books in State College since the 2007 West End Revitalization plan, but saw renewed attention in 2014 when PennDOT awarded the borough a $160,000 Multi-modal grant to complete the project.
Since then, the project has hit a couple snags, including high turnover in the planning and public works departments and complaints from property owners on a section of the future bike path, said borough Manager Tom Fountaine.
“There is a piece of right-of-way at the end of North Gill Street that is scheduled to be part of the project that has never been opened and ordained as a public street, so it has to be vacated,” he said. “We have been working with property owners for quite a while now to get that issue resolved.”
Once vacated, the borough wants to place an easement over the middle of the street, which will become part of the bike path.
At a November Planning Commission meeting, John Simbeck of Gemini Enterprises, who owns part of the property to be vacated by the borough, said the vacation would take away “about a third” of the parking he leases.
“The issues that we have had there that have been raised have either been solved or they can be solved,” said Fountaine. “I don’t think we’re at a point where there’s deal breaking problems in that process.”
The borough hopes to improve bicycle connectivity from Penn State’s West Campus where it intersects with North Gill Street all the way to Community Field near State High. From there, cyclists can link up with the Westerly Parkway and Orchard Park Bike Path to continue to Blue Course Drive and Ferguson Township or other on-street bicycle routes.
“It connects the West Campus to the greater biking network throughout that area of State College Borough and then Ferguson Township,” said borough communications specialist Douglas Shontz.
Part of Penn State’s aim with the West Campus Master Plan is to improve “town-gown connectivity” through building more pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
Penn State provided design work for the bicycle path project “because there is sort of that linkage between Penn State and State College,” said Fountaine. “The borough is responsible for letting the contract and managing the construction of the project with grant funds.”
There’s a match for the grant funds, he said, bringing the estimated total project cost to $380,000. It could cost more, he said, but the borough won’t know until it opens bids for construction.
Since the grant has been extended multiple times, the borough has until November 2020 to complete the project and close out the grant.
“The schedule currently is to finish the work on the right of way issues, get the easements in place and then get bids out for late summer construction,” said Fountaine.
The borough hopes to have the bicycle path finished by the start of the 2020-2021 academic year, though it could stretch later.
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