ALLENTOWN, Pa. — From the parking lot of Kimmett’s Lock, there are really no good choices for hikers and bikers on the D&L Trail — if they head either north or south, they’ll be met with unimproved sections, or it would be necessary to share the road with drivers.
But trail officials are working to change that.
- The Lehigh Valley gap of the D&L Trail could close by 2036
- The gap is about 10 miles
- The western section is the farthest from completion, and requires acquisition from Norfolk Southern
“The goal is to have a multi-use trail where you're off the road,” said Liz Rosencrans, director of trails and conservation for the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, the agency that oversees the D&L Trail. “It's bicycles, walkers, hikers — really any mode as long as it's non-motorized.”
The lock is in the heart of the Lehigh Valley’s D&L Trail gap, one of three gaps left in the 140-mile trail, which stretches from just outside of Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, Bucks County. The Valley’s gap makes up about a third of the 30 total miles of gaps left before the trail is completed. Extending from Allentown to north of Coplay, the gap, made up of two main sections delineated by the Lehigh River, is expected to finally be closed in a little over a decade, officials said.
“End of 2025, we should say [beginning of] 2026, is the hope to have a connected route all the way through on the eastern side of the river,” said Rosencrans. “And then if we had to have an estimate, and it's a rough estimate, for the whole gap being connected in the Lehigh Valley, it would be out to 2036.”
The Canal Side
Efforts to close the 3 miles of trail gap and complete improvements on the eastern side of Lehigh River are well underway after an injection of $5 million in state funds, followed by $3.2 million through the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
In November, officials gathered at the Kimmett’s Lock Trailhead to announce the state funding, which included $2 million from the state budget and $3 million from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The state DCNR’s January announcement called it “a priority trail gap through the Lehigh Valley.”
All those funds are earmarked for trail improvements in Catasauqua, Hanover and Allentown.
In addition to many other benefits, trails contribute to the vitality of our communities by making them places where people want to live and locate a business. They are a perfect use of the federal recovery funds intended to help our economy rebuild after the pandemic and we worked hard to get them on the ground quickly.Cindy Adams Dunn, state DCNR secretary
“In addition to many other benefits, trails contribute to the vitality of our communities by making them places where people want to live and locate a business,” said Cindy Adams Dunn, state DCNR secretary, in a news release announcing the funding. “They are a perfect use of the federal recovery funds intended to help our economy rebuild after the pandemic and we worked hard to get them on the ground quickly.”
The three projects include constructing short stretches of trail, including 1.1 miles of trail from the current trial at Bradford Street to the Allentown/Hanover Township border, as well as a trailhead; approximately .75 miles of trail from Race Street to the Catasauqua/North Catasauqua border; and approximately 0.5 miles of trail from the Hanover Township/Allentown border to US-22 and an at-grade road crossing, as well as rehabilitation of approximately .4 miles of trail from US-22 to the Hanover Township Canal Park.
When work is completed, it will mark the first time there’s a continuous route on the trail through the Valley.
“The allocation and then the grants had been trickling in to actually get the projects moving,” Rosencrans said. “ … People will be able to travel through the Lehigh Valley without getting onto a road once the canal side is open.”
The West Bank Rail Trail
The trail gap on the western side of the Lehigh River, also known as the West Bank Rail Trail, is further behind the canal side, but has also seen an influx of funding to help close it. There’s just over 7.5 miles of gap left.
In November 2021, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission received $21 million from the federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE, grant program, for the Riverside Drive project, part of which slated to develop 3.5 miles of street, including trail, between Union and Race streets.
From the Race Street Bridge north, however, a little over 4 miles of trail is still in the earliest phase of trail development.
“All those projects are land, rail bed is still owned by Norfolk Southern,” Rosencrans said. “That's in the acquisition phase; that's the earliest phase of trail development. So that has a much longer timeline because they're in the process of hopefully acquiring.”
Asked for an update on the acquisition from Norfolk Southern, Lehigh County spokesperson Adrianna Calderon said “the county has not[h]ing to add at this time.”
A request for comment to Norfolk Southern was not immediately returned.
The state DCNR last year awarded $2 million for the county to buy the property, the “last piece of privately owned property needed to design and build the West Bank Rail Trail and Lehigh Valley Loop of the D&L Trail," according to a news release.
“Nothing is set in stone — nothing's been agreed upon, but that would be the goal, to acquire the rail bed and develop the trail there,” Rosencrans said. “It's parallel [to the] Ironton Rail Trail for a portion; it would give people that connection to the Ironton Rail Trail that they'd like to see.
“And people would be able to come from the Cementon trailhead and just keep going south, which currently is private property and it’s a no-go.”
'People want to see it’
To help close the Valley gap of the D&L Trail, as well as two others that exist to the north and south of the region, the DLNHC earlier this month launched a campaign called “Take Action.”
Hosted on the organization’s website, the campaign aims to facilitate connections between trail users, stewards and officials by educating residents and providing resources to boost engagement and opportunities to get involved and support the trail.
“It gives people the tools that they need to take the next step, because a lot of people were really interested in advocating for closing trail gaps,” Rosencrans said. “But they were kind of like, ‘Where do we go from here? I know I want to help, but how?
“So it lays out a number of ways to advocate.”
The website has links for residents to find their local legislator, write letters in support of the trail and links to public meeting schedules.
One potential obstacle could have been buy-in from local officials and residents, she explained, but that hasn’t happened.
“The city of Allentown, Hanover Township, Lehigh County — everybody's really excited for the trail,” she said. ”They know that people want to see it, and so they are willing to own it and to build it.”
