If you pull up AllTrails before a walk at Churchill Valley Greenway, it will route you over the wooden bridge that crosses Beulah Road and on toward the northwest section of the property, where the app's path assumes a second bridge that has since collapsed. Hikers who trust the route end up backtracking through brush, looking for a way around a gap the map doesn't know is there.
Meanwhile, the stream running through those same 151 acres has already gotten the kind of fix the trails never did. In 2024, Allegheny Land Trust announced a $2.7 million underground filtration system for Chalfant Run to deal with decades of acid mine drainage. Two years later, the Land Trust's own site describes the greenway as moving into its next restoration phase, language that suggests the water project is done or close to it. The trail network hasn't caught up. If you live near the greenway, that gap is worth understanding before your next visit.
Two Repair Projects, Two Different Clocks
Chalfant Run had carried aluminum-laden runoff from old coal mining for decades, leaving the water cloudy and largely uninhabitable for fish or the crayfish and other macroinvertebrates that would normally live there. The fix, as ALT's senior director of marketing and community engagement Lindsay Dill described it in 2024, involves a system where visitors would eventually see "berms surrounding (ponds), limestone beds and clean water flowing to a restored stream," with most of the filtration hardware buried underground. The Pennsylvania Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation covered the $2.7 million cost as part of a $5.3 million round of state grants aimed at cleaning up undermined land across the region, with additional funding rounds to follow. The work was slated to begin that fall. ALT hasn't published a public completion update since, but its current messaging about entering a new restoration phase points toward the water fix being behind them now.
That is a serious amount of engineering for a stream most residents have never noticed except to comment on the color of the water. It is also money that exists because acid mine drainage remediation has its own dedicated state funding stream. Trail repair does not.
| The water story | The trail story | |
|---|---|---|
| Funded by | PA Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation | ALT operating budget and past community fundraising |
| Investment | $2.7 million, part of a $5.3 million regional grant round | About $273,000 raised by 800 individual donors toward the original 2021 purchase |
| Status as of 2026 | Announced 2024, likely complete or near it based on ALT's "next phase" messaging | Still informal, no ALT maintenance, one bridge collapsed |
What "Next Restoration Phase" Means on the Ground
Allegheny Land Trust's own site now describes the greenway as entering its "next restoration phase," a phrase that suggests the early emergency work is done. Some of that is accurate. The organization has removed invasive species and planted roughly 500 native trees since acquiring the land in 2021, much of it protected inside deer exclusion fencing while young growth establishes itself. Local school groups have been part of that effort too. Students from Moss Side Middle School in the Gateway School District spent a day with ALT's stewardship team planting 340 trees on the property, part of a broader regional push to add tree canopy across environmental justice areas over the next several years.
What "next phase" does not currently include is the trail network itself. ALT is explicit that the paths crossing the property are former golf cart routes and informal trails worn in by regular visitors, not infrastructure the organization maintains. That distinction matters if you are planning a route rather than just wandering.
Before You Go
A few practical notes worth knowing if you have not walked the greenway recently:
- Park at the gravel lot at 800 Beulah Road. It is small, so avoid blocking the drive or the access gate.
- Dogs are welcome but must stay on leash, and given the mine drainage history in Chalfant Run, keeping them out of the water is worth doing even where other visitors don't.
- Stick to the southeast side of Beulah Road if you want to avoid the collapsed bridge on the northwest section. ALT has long-term plans to rebuild the Beulah Road crossings, but that work has not started yet.
- Don't rely on AllTrails' routing through this specific property. It has not caught up with which bridges are actually standing.
Why the Split Makes Sense If You Live Here
None of this is mismanagement. It is a reflection of how conservation funding actually works. Mine drainage remediation qualifies for large, dedicated state grants because it is an environmental contamination issue with its own regulatory framework and funding line. Trail maintenance on a 151-acre property with no paid maintenance crew depends on a much smaller and already largely spent pool of money, the same $273,000 that 800 local residents donated back in 2021 to help ALT close the original $3 million purchase.
The greenway sits across two municipalities, with 111 acres in Churchill and 40 acres in Penn Hills, which is part of why it means something different to different neighbors. Ian Cartwright, a Penn Hills resident and member of Friends of the Churchill Valley Greenway, put it plainly in a 2024 interview with TribLive: the area doesn't have a central business district or the kind of amenities that usually pull people in, but "we do have this really interesting greenway that's being rewilded, and it's kind of a feather in our cap." That framing holds for Churchill too. The greenway isn't a finished amenity. It's a long-term project that residents on both sides of Beulah Road are watching evolve in real time, one grant cycle at a time.
Good Timing If You're Walking It This Fall
The parts of the greenway that are fully usable right now happen to line up well with the season ahead. The open meadows that used to be fairways turn to goldenrod by late summer, and the property sees a strong run of migratory songbirds as they move south, enough that the Westmoreland Bird & Nature Club has led guided outings there specifically for fall migration. Between the meadow, the stream-side trail, and roughly five miles of old cart paths and community-forged routes, there's plenty of ground to cover without ever needing the section near the collapsed bridge.
If you're making a morning of it, a handful of longtime spots sit just a few minutes from the trailhead along the Beulah Road corridor, including Carl's Tavern, Asti's Italian Steakhouse, and Bombay To Burgh. None of them require a special trip. They're simply what's already there if you're already out that way.
The greenway is not one project. It's two, running on different clocks, funded by different pools of money, and visible to residents in different ways depending on whether you're looking at the water or the ground underfoot. Knowing which is which makes the next walk a lot less confusing than the app will.
If you're weighing a move to Churchill, Penn Hills, or anywhere else along the eastern suburbs and want a read on the neighborhood that goes beyond the listing photos, Vanessa Doss can walk you through what daily life actually looks like here. Schedule a free market consultation with Vanessa to get started.
