Philly area set to receive record-breaking $322M in state and federal money for trails
Projects in line for funding include the much-anticipated Spring Garden Connector.
Philadelphia and its surrounding counties are set for what could be a record-breaking $322 million in federal and state funding to go toward building new trails segments, say trail advocates.
Projects in line for funding include the much-anticipated Spring Garden Connector in Philly. And it would include the Newtown Rail, Chester Creek, and Parkside-Wynnefield-Cynwyd trails in the suburban counties.
The money is part of a larger $8.2 billion pool of transportation grants awarded through the federal Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for the 2027 fiscal year.
“We consider this to be potentially record breaking,” said Patrick Monahan, vice chair of the Circuit Trails Coalition in Pennsylvania. “It’s proof that the trails are being treated as essential infrastructure, making it safer and easier to walk and bike in the region.”
In 2024, Pennsylvania received $200 million for trails under TIP.
Pennsylvania gets its TIP plan updated every two years and the majority of money goes to highways, bus and rail systems, trolleys, and ferries. It is part of an agreed-upon list of priority transportation projects.
That list includes 344 bicycle and pedestrian projects.
In all, this year’s proposed $322 million in funding for trails would advance 27 projects across Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties to be spread out over four years.
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is set to vote on approving the allocations in July.
The trails, either begun or being planned, are part of the Circuit Trails, a network of hundreds of miles of multiuse trails throughout the Philadelphia region including southern New Jersey, which receives its TIP funding in alternate years.
A sample of the trail projects in line for funding include:
$11 million for the second phase to extend the Schuylkill Banks trail in Philadelphia south from near 61st Street to Passyunk Avenue that would include a new park at the base of the Passyunk Avenue Bridge.
$58.5 million for Philadelphia’s Spring Garden Connector project that would link trail systems along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers and make Spring Garden Street safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
$50 million to improve safety for roadway users, including pedestrians and cyclists, on PA 291 from Irving Street to Ridley Creek. The project includes building a multiuse side path that will be designated as part of the East Coast Greenway, a trail system linking Maine to Florida.
$8.5 million for the Chester Valley Trail, a multiuse trail along the alignment of the former Philadelphia and Thorndale Branch, a former freight train route, including renovation of the Whitford Bridge and Downingtown Trestle Bridge for bicycle and pedestrian use.
$10 million to develop a segment in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, that would run from the existing Wissahickon Trail in Fort Washington State Park to the existing Cross County Trail near SEPTA’s Fort Washington Station.
