GAP Shuttle During Construction
 

For those of you planning to ride the GAP now through the early fall. From Facebook:

Closure Between Mile Markers 92 and 94.5

GAP Mile 92 Reported on June 3, 2024 Last Updated: July 3, 2024Trail AlertsA 2.5-mile segment of the Great Allegheny Passage will be closed for a major underground pipeline replacement, from July 8 to mid-October. The segment is between mile markers 92 and 94.5. A free shuttle service for travelers and their bicycles will be provided every 30 minutes, first-come, first-served, by Trail Connect between 7:30 am and 7:00 pm, seven days a week, between the hamlet of Adelaide (near Blue Canoe RV Resort) and the parking lot near Dickerson Run, which is across the river from Dawson. For details on how you and your traveling partners can use this shuttle, visit www.trailconnect.com or call 724-972-6135.

The closure is required because Texas Eastern Transmission, operator of a 8,580-mile network of 30″ pipes sending natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico through 11 states to New York City and eastern ports, will be replacing a section of its pipe infrastructure underneath the Youghiogheny River. Texas Eastern Transmission selected Trail Connect to provide this service.

An exact end date will be determined by the speed of the project and will be posted here.

Nice of them to provide a shuttle around the blockage. Too many times this leads to a, "Too bad, you'll have to ride around" with no well-planned detour.

(Do we have the Pennsylvania public utilities commission to thank for this?)

Possibly. It may be a condition of the PUC order approving the plan. Or maybe it was a small concession by the pipeline owner because of the potential of lost revenue to local businesses. Summer and fall are busy times. I’m sure the additional cost for shuttle service is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall project cost, especially since the pipeline crosses the river.

I will say that Texas Eastern recently completed a pipeline project where all the equipment and material crossed the Schuylkill River Trail near Spring City, Pa. They dug a great pit and drilled large holes under the river, drove new pipe and filled it back in. They cut a wide swath of brush and scrub across the trail and down to the river. Lots of very large equipment. I’d say they did a great job of preventing any impact to trail use during the weeks of work and have cleaned it all up, graded, seeded and hay’d the whole place now. No complaints. The trees will return.

Our GAP ride begins on 3 Oct. Thanks for the heads up.

There is a lot more exposure with replacing a pipeline than there is with, say, replacing underground cables. Substandard work can lead to an environmental nightmare. I just retired from the rail industry. The number of longitudinal and lateral pipelines occupations was mind boggling. Any significant work garnered serious scrutiny. The major work by Colonial underneath one of our busiest yards comes to mind.

Sounds like a singlularly ill-thought place to run a pipeline. Lots of ground vibration, minimal tolerance for rail yard operational disruptions, finger-pointing galore if there ever was a leak...

Why didn't they just suspend the pipeline over, say, 10 miles of I-95?

Thanks. I ran into two shuttles in Canada, one for the bridge onto Prince Edward Island, the other, temporary, around road construction on Veloroute des Bluets. Both were free.

On a ride to Pittsburgh and back now. They shuttled me both ways. Harry is a great guy!

Just got back from a GAP trip and I'll say that the shuttle was Terrific. The driver was a great guy and it was a quick detour. About a 15 minute trip around the closed section of the trail.
If you're thinking you want to skip the shuttle and ride around it...Don't. The road is straight uphill to get around the closed section of the trail.

Pipeline work was completed way ahead of schedule. Previously closed section is now fully open.