A T-shirt bearing the slogan “Kennywoodn’t” arrived at my desk, the double-O being a bicycle’s wheels.

It was easy to surmise what this was about. The 335-mile bicycle trail from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., won’t be completed as planned this year largely because of an inability to pass through Sandcastle, the great water park in West Homestead owned by Kennywood Entertainment Co.

So I arranged to meet with Pete McAneny, president of Kennywood Entertainment and cycled out there. The trail on the south side of the Monongahela River is pretty great from Station Square (with one short detour), but the trail ends short of the Glenwood Bridge. From that point, if you don’t know the terrain or aren’t willing to carry or bounce your bicycle a couple of hundred yards along the CSX railroad tracks, getting to the other Sandcastle can be scarier than any ride at Kennywood.

After crossing and recrossing a tight and busy Carson Street, I wasn’t surprised my bicycle had the rack outside Sandcastle to itself at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Mr. McAneny says he has been wary of being put in this position for about a decade.

The trail “never should have come in this direction and should have gone across the river 10 years ago,” he said. Read more »