18990_Authority_Feb_2026

Building what matters. Communication, Commitment, Collaboration. Since 2016, our bond lawyers have guided clients through over 665 capital financings – totaling over $19.5 billion. Let the Clark Hill team lead your community’s infrastructure financing. For more information, contact: Lisa Chiesa: 412.394.2454 | lchiesa@clarkhill.com Jim Webster: 412.394.2486 | jhwebster@clarkhill.com Kristen Erickson: 412.338.2921 | kerickson@clarkhill.com www.clarkhill.com This material may be deemed "Attorney Advertising." Lewisburg, PA – The SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority has a history of partnering with communities on projects that benefit the authority and the local municipality. Such projects include the Talleyrand Park Pedestrian Walkway in Bellefonte, helping Port Matilda Borough with a multimodal project to improve High Street and railroad drainage and the Hepburn Street Trailhead parking lot as part of the RiverWalk in Williamsport. One recent project that demonstrated that cooperative effort was in Milesburg, Centre County. An October 2016 storm caused flash flooding across the Bald Eagle Valley, including the Borough of Milesburg. The storm and accompanying flood resulted in evacuations of businesses and residents, and several locations along the Nittany Bald Eagle Railroad (NBER) were damaged. Moose Run, a small stream flowing through Milesburg, couldn’t handle the heavy rain from the storm because two adjacent bridges were too small to convey the flood water. When built over 100 years ago, the JRA Bridge MP 30.93 and the borough’s Railroad Street Bridge, were the correct size for the stream and weather patterns of that time. However, in recent years with new upstream development and more frequent high-intensity storms events, these bridges were no longer able to handle the amount of water that flows through Moose Run during higher year storm events. Milesburg Borough, a small rural community of less than 1,000 residents, did not have the staff or budget to handle a bridge upgrade of this size on its own. In 2017, the JRA owned the railroad bridge, and Milesburg Borough owned the roadway bridge. Since these bridges are directly adjacent to each other, the JRA and the Borough partnered to replace the two undersized bridges with a single structure sized to match an existing culvert a short way upstream; it is this culvert that regulates flood flows on Moose Run. After two unsuccessful attempts to secure grant funding, the project was ultimately awarded a DCED and a PennDOT Multimodal Transportation Grants in 2021. Additionally, with direct funding from the JRA, the borough, Centre County and the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad construction work on the project began in March 2025. SEDA-COG J oint R ail A uthority By Steven Beattie, Executive Director, SEDA-COG Joint Rail Authority