The new bike trail will connect the Great Allegheny Passage to the Flight 93 National Memorial. The full trail encompasses 1,300 miles of multi-use trails and roads. It connects the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania; World Trade Center Memorial in New York; and Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
This will be the first section of multi-use trail built specifically for the September 11th National Memorial Trail.
Officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday in the parking lot of the Great Allegheny Passage trail in Garrett.
“With this groundbreaking today of the first 1.4 mile section, we begin the journey to complete approximately 49 miles of additional trail opportunities here in Somerset County which will ultimately provide a better quality of life for everyone in our area and much appreciated tourism dollars,” Somerset County Commissioner Gerald Walker told a crowd of people at the ceremony.
The first 20-mile section of the new trail is “one of quite a few high priority segments,” 9/11 Trail board chairman Andy Hamilton told CNN. The project relies on private and public funding, he added.