Bike on the old turnpike – Public Opinion, Chambersburg, Penna.
A convergence of interests — bicycling, highways, and history (and bad puns — again) have been brought to my attention by one of the entertainment sites that I helped develop for a newspaper.

Near Breezewood, Penna. there is an original section of Pennsylvania Turnpike that was closed after it was bypassed in the 1960s. A few years ago the Turnpike Commission sold it to Southern Alleghenies Conservancy, which turned it into a bike path. It is over eight miles long and includes two tunnels (built originally for the South Penn Railroad, which was never completed) that total over two miles. The tunnels are unlit and apparently home to bats. I have a hunch getting lighting in there will be tough, on account of thoaw bats, especially if they are of the endangered Indiana variety. Nevertheless, this sounds like something that I want to do and can think of a few people who may be up for it too.

Jeff Kitsko, webmaster of pahighways.com advises me that you better have a mountain bike for this ride, at least for now. It looks like SAC wants to improve the replace some of the original roadway to make it more friendly for cyclists, etc.

To learn more about the Superhighway Trail, visit Kitsko’s Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Abandoned Sections – pahighways.com
There are links to the other pages on the subject, there are a lot of them in fact.

Also, you may want to read the books, Vanderbilt’s Folly, which you can buy at Kitsko’s Book Store (Amazon).