Catch up on the P2P Corridor Conversations
Heart Trails Kickoff
2/3/2026 Summary
The kickoff meeting brought together people who share a strong passion for trails and interest in their future. Participants discussed how trails connect communities, create opportunities for recreation and economic development, and can introduce more people to the outdoors. The conversation highlighted a desire for stronger connections among existing trails, more trail-friendly communities and businesses, and greater participation from new and younger trail users. Participants also offered feedback on the project’s engagement questions, suggesting more specific prompts and multiple-choice options to help people envision possibilities and provide actionable input.
Key Takeaways
There is strong personal enthusiasm for trails and their potential to connect communities.
Participants see trail connectivity as a major opportunity. A recurring theme was the desire to create stronger connections among existing trails.
Trails can drive community and economic development.
Expanding trail participation—including new trail users and young people— is an important goal.
The project’s engagement questions may benefit from greater specificity.
While the broad questions about what people want from trails and how to achieve it resonated, participants suggested breaking them down into more concrete choices—such as what people would like to see, do, or experience on trails.
Ensuring Community Benefit from Trails
2/5/2026 Summary
Participants of this session were seeking and naming solutions related to communities that are not fully benefiting from trails. They spoke of places where limited buy-in impacts the visitor experience and where the many benefits of trails are not yet fully enjoyed by local residents. The backdrop of this conversation about ensuring community benefit was that the region is lagging behind others, experiencing population loss, and showing signs of neglect. With investments in trail infrastructure and programs in support of entrepreneurship, it is possible for the trails that comprise the P2P Corridor to help revitalize communities. A virtuous cycle that starts with improved trails can lead to more local use and signs of caring, more visitors having positive experiences, some visitors and former residents deciding to relocate to the area (tourism being the “red carpet to residency”), and communities thriving (in part) through a shared regional asset. This group desires more connected communities through trails and zeroed in on establishing support systems to make this possible, as it has been demonstrated in other Appalachian regions.
Key Takeaways
Trails tend to present a “chicken or the egg” problem. Issues related to missing sections, poor conditions, and limited business services make it difficult to provide a quality trail experience. In turn, decision makers have trouble justifying trail investments.
Other regions do enjoy the many benefits of trails.
Benefits to local residents should take priority over accommodating visiting trail users, though “tourism is the red carpet to residency” and trail investments can be mutually beneficial.
Programs and resources exist in other places to support people in establishing and sustaining small businesses. These should be studied so that local resources can be made available. This should include programs that put abandoned or neglected properties back to use.
Trails & Conservation
2/20/2026 Summary
This session focused on ensuring that conservation goals are incorporated into the project. All of the best outdoor hubs take conservation seriously, and so should the P2P Corridor. The group considered how the trails could potentially be part of a larger conservation landscape that improves quality of life and the outdoor economy. Balancing development and amenity needs with the desire to maintain natural areas was a topic the group returned to multiple times, as well as the importance of organizing a support base that will advocate for conservation in a region in which conservation is a sensitive topic.
Key Takeaways
A conservation landscape approach (with the trails at the center) would support conservation efforts and the outdoor economy. In the scenario, the landscape becomes the destination, not just the built communities.
Conservation significantly contributes to quality of life and economic development. It takes intentional effort to get people to realize this and to move them up the ladder from trail users/consumers to advocates.
Significant issues named include the North 25th Street Glass and Zinc Superfund site along the Harrison North Trail, invasive species, forest health, acid mine drainage, debris in adjacent waterways, and development impacts (landslides, water quality, water and sewer issues) and encroachments.
Industrial impacts (and recovery) are part of the story of transition and renewal, one we shouldn’t hide from.
Balancing development and amenity improvements with the desire to maintain natural areas is desirable. Concerns about overbuilding were discussed alongside the recognition that water, restrooms, restaurants, etc. make trail activation more likely.
Amazing Trails! P2P as a National Model
2/24/2026 Summary
This session explored how the P2P might become a national model for rural economic development. Planning for how trails can be integrated with communities, economic development strategies, conservation, and transportation from the onset – and being able to share these strategies in other locations – can position the P2P as a national model. The group emphasized the importance of providing quality visitor experiences while ensuring that regional residents use and benefit from trails. Regional collaboration and municipal involvement are needed. A participating business representative (with a company that sells trip packages on the Great Allegheny Passage) shared insights on trail user needs and spending patterns, saying that their typical customer is a 65-year-old from California spending thousands of dollars on the trip. Of the P2P, he says, “What’s possible here is dramatic.”
Key Takeaways
Establishing the P2P as a national model will likely involve having a dual focus on providing a seamless and special visitor experience and ensuring the local and regional residents use and benefit from trails.
Ongoing regional collaboration is a must, and municipal governments need to be involved. “There needs to be a seamless handoff of trail users from place to place, while not losing what makes places unique.”
The P2P has the potential to become a national model with the right trail ecosystem in place (quality trail, broadband, business services, a strong sense of place, trail culture, and things to do). “What’s possible here is dramatic” (due to the possibility of connecting hundreds of miles of trails).
A participating business owner said that trail users are “raining cash” on other trails and that their business can “feed” the P2P when it is completed. He shared that trail users are looking for food, lodging, coffee, beer, and ice cream.
Economic & Workforce Opportunities
2/26/2026 Summary
Participants in this session considered ways that the region can become more economically competitive through trails, small business needs and gaps in business services, and ways of successfully reaching the economic development community. The discussion was grounded in the idea that quality economic development must involve local residents and can’t be done without some level of place attachment. Ideas for a more prosperous region included trails as community arteries and places where “You couldn’t imagine the town without it.” Tourism was de-emphasized throughout the discussion. While important to the region, tourism was discussed as one of various inroads to trail-related economic and workforce opportunities. Having small businesses, quality housing, and outdoor recreation were elevated as necessary ingredients to landing any economic development “big win.”
Key Takeaways
Quality economic development must involve local residents or feelings of place attachment. A positive place identity makes successful development projects more likely.
West Virginia has “an abundance of resources but entrepreneurs don’t know where to start.” The West Virginia Entrepreneurship Ecosystem coordinates resource providers that support entrepreneurs and also does triage for entrepreneurs who are looking to start.
The most common business “triage needs” across West Virginia relate to customer discovery/understanding customers, sustainable marketing, and licensure and regulatory requirements. Access to capital can be an issue as well.
Needed shifts include speaking the language of economic developers (jobs created, investment dollars gained, etc.) and recognizing the need for year-round paying customers and knowing how to reach them.
Tourism is one inroads to improving the regional economy. Residential and business attraction and retention are seen as being more impactful.
Maintaining Livability in and Outdoor Economy
3/3/2026 Summary
Livability principles relating to trail connections to neighborhoods and community points of interests, housing affordability, and how well the trail and adjacent properties are maintained were discussed. Acknowledging that the session title was “Maintaining Livability,” the group discussed whether livability has already been achieved. The response may depend on who is being asked. Whatever the potential response, trail efforts must take into account the desires and needs of local communities, asking, “How can this trail make your life better?”
Key Takeaways
Quality of place is a driving force of today’s economy (citing OEDC).
If one of the goals is to produce a plan in which historically underserved communities shape and benefit from the outcomes, we must ask, “How can this trail make your life better?”
Ideas on livable communities will vary throughout the corridor based on community makeup.
“If we create communities that are attractive, vibrant, and active, people are going to want to live there.” We have to “tackle issues that are evident alongside trails, as their physical appearance, if improved, results in a greater likelihood of support and perceived value.
While not central to the topic, participants made clear that having an accurate understanding of trail gaps is needed to garner state agency support, and this support is essential in completing a contiguous system.
Maintaining Momentum
3/10/2026 Summary
Maintaining momentum was discussed largely in terms of keeping a wide variety of stakeholders engaged and enthused. Demonstrating positive changes in trail quality and trail development were stated as ways of doing so (“Success breeds success.”). Regular and ongoing communication were emphasized to continue building support. If a business opens fronting a trail instead of with its back to it, “It’s a big deal and we need to brag about that.” Participants were not easily able to speak to governance models or organizing structures. The few models that were named included Mon Forest Towns, Made X Mountains, and the Canal Towns Partnership. WV TRAIL was noted as a potential entity to continue this work (alongside a Pennsylvania partner).
Key Takeaways
Momentum is naturally building through the master planning process. The email distribution list included 250 subscribers (from zero) at the time of the discussion.
Incremental, visible successes - and communicating them - are needed to build and maintain momentum.
Work may need to occur on two parallel tracks: filling the trail gaps and economic and marketing strategies.
A two-state effort will be difficult to maintain over time. Challenges may include varying grant sources, getting partners to recognize that “we’re all part of one system” and to make decisions for the collective good, cultural differences across the landscape, and garnering support for an industry that can be associated with low wages.
To best include underserved communities, project advocates have to demonstrate the value of trail investments.
