A presentation by Mike Szilagyi
Wednesday April 9, 2025, 6:00pm

The Schuylkill Navigation is the 108 mile long chain of dams and canals that brought literally millions of tons of anthracite coal down from Schuylkill County to tidewater at Philadelphia. Started in 1815-1825, it ended early in the 20th century.

Oliver Evans Chapter Member Mike Szilagyi, AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners), plans and designs pedestrian and bicycle facilities at Michael Baker International. His decades devoted to planning Pennsylvania’s bicycle trail network yield the added benefit of a deep knowledge of the long-forgotten web of former railroad and canal rights-of-way built before the automobile came to dominate the landscape. In many cases, abandoned railroad and trolley track-beds may be repurposed as rails-to-trails, and so returned to their roles as avenues of clean congestion-free transportation. A lifelong cyclist, author of Bucks County Trolleys (2020) and co-author of Montgomery County Trolleys (2018), Szilagyi resides in North Wales, Pennsylvania where he serves on the borough Historic Commission board.

Location: Parkway Central Free Library, 1901 Vine Street
Enter Room 108 by way of the back entrance of the library on Wood Street. The room will be open at 5:30 for members and visitors to mingle.

There is metered parking around the library building and a paid parking lot behind the library with an entrance off Callowhill Street.