Mar 19, 2016 4 min read

There is a point in a political impasse where the ramifications become apparent. We have reached that point with the Pennsylvania state budget.

Among the starker casualties of the stalemate are Pennsylvania’s heritage areas, all of which raise a portion of their operating capital through local, grassroots fundraisers, but nevertheless depend heavily upon appropriations from the commonwealth’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Although the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf and the Legislature have blamed one another, the practical fact remains that heritage areas are slated to receive no state funding in either the 2015-16 budget, or in Wolf’s 2016-17 budget proposal. If this comes to pass, the locally directed work of heritage areas to promote, enhance and protect Pennsylvania’s cultural and natural resources, which attract visitors from across America, will have dwindled and ceased. It will be tragic for communities across the commonwealth whose best hope for economic vitality rests in tourism.

Established by state statute in 1989, our 12 heritage areas include the Allegheny Ridge Heritage Area; the Delaware and Lehigh Heritage Corridor; the Endless Mountains Heritage Region; Lackawanna Heritage Valley; the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor; the Lumber Heritage Region; the National Road Heritage Corridor; the Oil Region Heritage Area; Route 6 Heritage Corridor; Rivers of Steel Heritage Area; the Schuylkill River Heritage Area; and the Susquehanna Gateway Heritage Area.

It’s apparent just from the names of these organizations that they commemorate, and, more importantly enliven, Pennsylvania’s core historic, geographic and natural identity. Heritage areas promote attractions within their regions of focus, facilitate visitors’ experiences and interpret the significance of what they’ve seen. Heritage areas also work with tourism-related businesses, helping them to identify potential customers, market their products and improve visitor appeal. A study sponsored by the Center For Rural Pennsylvania concluded that in 2014 visitors to attractions within heritage areas purchased $2 billion in goods and services, supporting almost 26,000 jobs.

In a general sense, all our heritage areas function in a similar way, exerting a synergistic influence on economic development – often in rural regions where tourism is the single best hope for new or expanding enterprises – by providing disparate small businesses and community organizations a place to rally and pool their efforts toward common beneficial projects. I am most familiar, however, with the work and accomplishments of the National Road Heritage Corridor, where I am proud to serve on the board of directors.

NRHC spans the counties of Somerset, Fayette and Washington and a compelling history of frontier conflict, westward destiny and industrial might.

Our region’s economy has faltered since the coal and steel industries began declining in the 1980s. But our three-county region retains a remarkable array of historic, scenic and outdoor recreational sites that offer hope for a vibrant future. NRHC works to help communities and businesses throughout the National Road corridor capitalize on the desire of visitors to stop at these sites.

For example, NRHC serves as the one common unifying entity that makes possible the annual National Pike Festival, where communities and organizations along Route 40, from Addison in Somerset County to West Alexander in Washington County, entertain visitors in celebration of the National Road, built to open America west of the Alleghenies.

NRHC is the one single entity working across municipal borders to build the Sheepskin Trail, a 34-mile hiking/biking trail across Fayette County that will link heavily used trail systems in Morgantown, W.Va., to the Great Allegheny Passage trail at Connellsville. Completion of this trail will bring an economic boost to central Fayette County, one of the most chronically distressed regions in the state.

Similarly, NRHC is the leading and unifying force in a collaborative push to revitalize communities along the Monongahela River in Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties. The Mon Valley was once the very seat of American heavy industry, and the river was industry’s artery of transport, bearing coal, coke, iron, steel and glass from mines and mills to markets. As heavy industry shriveled, so did opportunity in river towns like Monessen, Charleroi, Brownsville and Greensboro.

Comparable successes, where local communities reap multiplied benefits from an initial state investment in heritage areas, are improving local economies across the commonwealth. It makes no sense to sacrifice hundreds of millions of dollars in local economic growth by cutting the $2.25 million heritage area program from the state’s budget.

The governor and Legislature must recognize the economic potential heritage areas offer their constituents and restore heritage area funding to the budget.

Ben Moyer is a member of the board of directors for the National Road Heritage Corridor based in Farmington.