Great Allegheny Passage getting national attention

Kevin Spradlin

Recent hits in national publications:

Oct. 23 - NY Times

Oct. 9 - USA Today

Oct. 16 - Baltimore Sun

Oct. 9 - USA Today

Aug. 26 - Washington Post

Economic Impact Study - The Progress Fund



CUMBERLAND — Recent feature stories in national and regional newspapers, including a front page article in last week’s New York Times, has local trail enthusiasts hoping for a banner year in 2010.

And 2009 isn’t going that bad, either.

Through September, more than 60,000 cyclists, hikers and runners have been counted along the Great Allegheny Passage in Allegany County. About 50,000 people passed through in all of 2008.

The 20.47-mile rail trail begins in front of the Western Maryland Railway Station at Canal Place and goes to the Pennsylvania line a few miles northwest of Frostburg.

“It’s been great to see something come to fruition,” Larry Brock, one of the original supporters of the trail, told Economic Development Committee members Thursday at the Allegany County Chamber of Commerce.

“The impact that this will carry through to next year will be amazing,” Brock said, noting a planned feature article in Bicycle Magazine scheduled for this fall.

Visitors, Brock said, “are from all over (the world). People love Cumberland. It’s quiet, it’s quaint and it’s safe.”

Brock, a guide for Adventure Cycling, said findings of a recent economic impact study of the Great Allegheny Passage showed that four of every 10 trail users planned an overnight stay as part of their trip.

“On average, these overnight trail users spent $98 a day in the trail communities and on lodging,” according to the report, commissioned for The Progress Fund’s Trail Town Program, the Laurel Highlands Visitors Bureau and the Allegheny Trail Alliance.

“The remaining trail users surveyed were either local residents or were enjoying a day trip,” said the report, released a week ago. “These local/day trip trail users spent an average of $13 a day in the trail communities.”

Bill Atkinson, of the Maryland Department of Planning and a member of Mountain Maryland Trails, an Allegany County-based organization that oversees the local portion of the GAP, said the trail isn’t “just a nice recreational trail.”

“It is economic development,” Atkinson said. “This is a huge selling point why you should locate your business here.”

Brenda Smith, Cumberland’s economic development coordinator and treasurer for Mountain Maryland Trails, called the trail a “key economic tool.”

She said she highlighted the area’s quality of life, including the trail, in a recent meeting with a prospective client.

The half dozen business professionals gathered for Thursday’s meeting agreed that younger people work in places they also can play.

And not everyone has to spend money, Brock said.

“You want the best free show in town?” Brock asked committee members. “Go out and watch the steam train climb the mountain. You have a 200-ton, smoke-filled behemoth going chuk-a-chuk-a” up Big Savage Mountain.

Future plans include working with Hunter Abell of Jack Abell Inc. to relocate the trail under Valley Street in Cumberland, which would eliminate a safety hazard, Brock said, and expanding trails from Frostburg down Georges Creek to Westernport.

Trail fans also want to focus on building a new trailhead at the Narrows in lower LaVale at the site of the former Penn Mar Motors building.

For more information on the report and for links to the national stories on the Great Allegheny Passage, log on to www.times-news.com.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.