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With the hiking-biking trail network between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., finally nearing completion, members of the McKeesport Trail Commission are stepping up efforts to promote the city as an destination to be explored.

New signs at the 15th Avenue Bridge and in Boston, Elizabeth Township, will highlight the 6.2-mile "Loop" through the city and around the Youghiogheny River, while a long-awaited information kiosk at McKee's Point Marina is ready for installation within the coming weeks.

At a meeting Tuesday night, Commission President Linda Brewster said volunteers also plan additional plantings to beautify the trail. A Dravosburg resident is donating saplings to be planted, though the exact locations have yet to be determined, she said.

The commission also debuted new T-shirts promoting the city's location on the bike trail. Designed by Dan Rugh of Commonwealth Press on Pittsburgh's South Side, the shirts depict the Bendel Lighthouse, Jerome Avenue Bridge and the CSX railroad bridge over the Youghiogheny. Priced at $10 and $15, the shirts are being sold at McKees Cafe in the Palisades.

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Last week, County Executive Dan Onorato and the owners of Sandcastle Water Park announced they've finally reached an agreement to construct nearly 1 mile of biking and hiking trail through Sandcastle's property in West Homestead.

The link is the last remaining gap in the Great Allegheny Passage, a 150-mile trail between Pittsburgh's Point State Park and Cumberland, Md. In Maryland, the trail joins the C&O Canal Trail, which runs to Washington, D.C.

The final segment will begin near the Costco store in the Waterfront and will be built between Sandcastle Drive and the CSX railroad tracks. A fence will separate the trail from the railroad tracks. Engineering and design work is underway and construction is expected to begin this winter, though work will be suspended in May when Sandcastle opens for the season.

Already under construction is a new segment of trail between Duquesne and Whitaker, using the path of a former U.S. Steel coke gas pipeline. Two new bridges over the Norfolk Southern's railroad tracks are already in place.

All of the work, including the segment near Sandcastle, is expected to be complete by November 2011.

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The city's trail commission is pushing to improve the appearance and amenities of McKeesport-area segments in preparation for what they expect will be an influx of new users. Bob MacGregor, one of the commission's "trail monitors," said volunteers are patrolling the biking and hiking paths to clean up debris, help wayward visitors and report safety problems.

McKeesport remains something of a "bottleneck" on the Great Allegheny Passage, MacGregor said, because there isn't a private right-of-way available through the Downtown area. The official trail markings currently require cyclists to navigate several blocks of sidewalk on Lysle Boulevard.

When renovations to Fifth Avenue are complete, Brewster said, the commission will ask city council for permission to reroute the bike trail there.

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In the meantime, the new kiosk near the Palisades will help visitors find their way. The kiosk includes a map, a history of the McKeesport area and photos of historic locations. Similar in design to ones found in Connellsville and West Newton, the kiosk is being paid for by a grant from Columbia Gas, trail board members said.

The "Scoop on the Loop" signs are designed to raise cyclist awareness of the two complementary sections of trail, called "The Loop," that parallel the Youghiogheny River through the city, Elizabeth Township, Liberty, Port Vue and Versailles, connecting at the 15th Avenue Bridge. One sign is already in place at the bridge; installation of the others is pending.

The commission is also lobbying the city's public works department to clean up those parts of the trail that use public streets --- including the area around the closed Lysle Boulevard parking garage, where broken concrete and dirt litter the sidewalk.

"It's the first thing people see when they come into McKeesport," MacGregor said. "We need to make sure everything is done by the spring."

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