The Chartiers Creek Greenway and trail system will connect over 180,000 urban and 70,000 rural residents with water-related recreational activities like fishing, hiking, boating and bird-watching.  

Serving 30 urban and 18 rural communities with a continuous natural blue and green recreational thread, it will preserve an important wildlife corridor.  

Organized and spontaneous canoe outings are becoming more frequent year round along Chartiers Creek:  But access to the creek is rocky and hazardous, and water pollution often exceeds safe limits. Projects are now underway to clean-up the creek, enhancing the recreational aspects now more than ever. Your voice can make the greenway, with its land and water trails, a reality.

Land and water form a vital link from the greenway's hillsides to the floodplain, wetlands and waterways, allowing residents to enjoy the natural landscape. But convenient access is necessary for the public to indulge in the watershed's countless recreational opportunities.  Ask for improved public access..

Currently, hiking trails exist on conserved parcels of land.  But these parcels are not linked together in a system, nor is there a continuous hiking/biking trail along the main channel of Chartiers Creek.  But there could be, with public demand.

GREENWAY TRAIL FEASIBILITY STUDY 

The increasing popularity of Chartiers Creek and its surrounding greenspace as a recreational opportunity prompted DCNR to fund a Greenway and Trail Feasibility study to encourage conservation of and access to these resources. 

It is the goal of this study, and the mission of its sponsors, to construct land and water trails to encourage access to these resources, and to ensure that significant natural areas are afforded protection.

Although much of the land in the watershed has been impacted by years of industrial activity, wooded hillsides and expansive open areas in the floodplain offer respite from the urban environment.  

About 100,000 people are estimated to live within two miles of the proposed trail and greenway. 

The lower Chartiers Creek valley presents the residents of southwestern Pennsylvania with a wonderful opportunity for an authentic outdoor experience.  The proposed land route will wind from Canonsburg to McKees Rocks, following the water route of our successful annual canoe sojourns.