Monday, April 25, 2016
CANFIELD
Mill Creek MetroParks planners are embarking on the final phase of a project to complete the park system’s bikeway.
The MetroParks Bikeway now spans 10.6 miles from Western Reserve Road to the Trumbull County line. Phase III of the project, which now is in the design and engineering stage, will extend the bikeway 6.4 miles south from Western Reserve Road to High Street in the village of Washingtonville, where it will connect to Columbiana County’s bike trail.
MetroParks planners Steve Avery and Justin Rogers expressed excitement about the project, saying that it will bring to fruition a vision for the bikeway that is nearly 30 years in the making.
“After 26 years, we’re getting close,” said Avery, who noted that planning for the bikeway began around 1990, shortly after he began his career at the park. “It means so much to us to work on something that means something to the entire community. ... It will impact the community for 100 years – just like the rail lines.”
The bikeway runs along a corridor originally occupied by a rail line constructed in the 1860s. That corridor was converted into a bikeway as part of the 1990 General Plan for Mill Creek MetroParks.
The original 10.6 miles of the bikeway, which was built with the help of nearly $3.8 million in state and federal funding, opened to the public around 2001, according to information provided by the MetroParks.
The final phase of the project also will be mostly funded by state and federal dollars. Final alignment, right-of-way plans and property acquisition was 100 percent funded; the estimated $552,650 design and engineering cost will be 80 percent funded; and the estimated $3,551,062 construction cost will be 80 percent funded.
One aspect of the bikeway extension that project planners are especially excited about, they said, is that it will complete Mahoning County’s contribution to the Great Ohio Lake-to-River Greenway, a planned 110-mile bikeway from Lake Erie to the Ohio River that now has more than 75 miles constructed.
“With completion of our Phase III, the Mahoning County section will be completed and linked to Columbiana and Trumbull counties,” said Rogers. “Everybody is actively working on their gaps.”
He noted the experience a connected bikeway will offer to users, as well as to the community.
“It is just a diversity of experiences and habitat and land use,” he said. “The more connected, the more complete a regional bikeway facility is, the more use it will get, the more draw it becomes for your long-distance riders. You’re bringing people into the communities. It is a major economic driver.”
Design and engineering is scheduled to be complete in about a year. Construction is slated to begin in 2018.
The MetroParks will host a public open house regarding the project from 6 to 8 p.m. May 5 at the MetroParks Farm (7574 Columbiana-Canfield Road).
For more information, contact the MetroParks at 330-702-3000.