Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter May 2006

Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter
May 2006

It’s 22 May 2006 and I have news for you about the trails in the Miami Valley. Please read on.

Trail Construction and Improvements.

Website Changes and Improvements

Did You Know Department

Announcements of Upcoming Cycling Events

Trail Construction and Improvements

Paul Lawrence Dunbar Connector Being Repaired – In 2005 a bank along the Wolf Creek washed out and made a section of this trail that starts in downtown Dayton where the Wolf Creek enters the Great Miami River. Construction will start in May and should be finished by June 2006. Repair of the trail cost Five Rivers MetroParks $65K. This trail, in time, will connect to the Wolf Creek Recreation Trail in Trotwood. Then the trail will run Northeast from Downtown Dayton to Trotwood, Brookville and Verona .
Findlay Street Bridge over Mad River Recreation Trail Completed – The Findlay Street Bridge over the Mad River Recreation Trail was completed and dedicated Friday 5 May 2006. The trail under the bridge was paved and now the detour on the Mad River Recreation Trail is over. I attended the dedication and heard Major McLin, and others speak. The bridge replaced one built in 1926 and cost $4.8 million. I have added a few new pictures to the webpage for the Mad River Recreation Trail
Middletown Section of Great Miami River Recreation Trail Dedicated - On Tuesday 16 May 2006, the four mile section of trail from Middletown South from SR-122 to SR-73, was dedicated at Bicentennial Park in Middletown. This section has been open since Fall 2005 but was just dedicated. I was unable to attend the dedication and I have been unable to update my webpage for this trail. Hopefully I'll get it updated within the next week or so. (Added 25 May 2006) . The new Middletown Trail Segment page is on the website.

Website Changes and Improvements

Little Miami Scenic Trail Pages Revised – For some time I have had nine webpages dedicated to this trail that runs over 72 miles South from Springfield to Milford, near Cincinnati. The trail connects to the Simon Kenton Trail to the North of Springfield and connects to the Lebanon Countryside Trail between Morrow and Loveland. I re-wrote each webpage to show links to every other section of the trail and its connecting trails. I hope that this change will make the pages more user friendly.
Please Note: This trail is being extended South from Milford in stages, to reach Lunken Airport. There is a 3.9 mile section that will be completed by June or July 2006 from Milford South through the City of Terrace Park to the Little Miami Golf Center. See my Milford to Lunken Airport webpage for more information.
Update to Ohio River Trail Page - I have updated this page with new information and new pictures of the Purple People Bridge. I found an good article on the Purple People Bridge in Wikipedia which is the on line encyclopedia of everything! That led me to a webpage of photos of the bridge taken by Mr. Jake Mecklenborg, on a webpage titled Louisville and Nashville Railroad Bridge. I have reproduced a picture by Jake on the page for the planned Ohio River Trail and have added links. Jake's website is Cincinnati Transit. He has photos on it or every transportation bridge in Cincinnati and it's well worth seeing.
Multi-Use Trail Statistics Page In Work – For some time, I have been trying to build a webpage that would show the numbers of users on each trail in the Miami Valley and the Economic Impact those users have on our area. I have been able to collect data from the trails in Clark and Greene County and I am working towards securing data for Montgomery and Miami Counties. I have suggested to several organizations in the Valley that they try to replicate the work done by OKI (Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana Council of Governments), that did a study of users of the Little Miami Scenic Trail in 1997 – 1999. They validated the raw data from the infrared counters on the trails with a “Mark One Eyeball” count by volunteers in September 1997. Their research showed that there were about 155,000 users on the trail that year that spent $2.0 – $2.4 million. The estimate of trail users in 2005 extrapolated from that research is 539,000.

I personally believe that we have in the Miami Valley hundreds of thousands of trail users who spend millions of dollars on trail use. We have new hotels, B&Bs and ice cream shops springing up on our trails to accommodate the out-of-time visitors who come from other states to ride our trails. So, with luck, I will be able to create a webpage that captures the impact of the users of our trails.

Sometime in the future I may ask for volunteers to help collect data in a one day effort on one of our local trails. What I hope to do with the cooperation of one or more of our county parks districts you have counter data, is to build factors that will adjust their raw counts into person visits to the trail. The tasks mainly involve counting users or asking questions from a “three minute survey” of trail users. Then once we collect and analyze the data we will be able to determine the number of actual users on the trail. We will ask them to fill out an more extensive survey that we will mail them. Following analysis of the data we can get an estimate of what trail users spend on their visits to our trails.

Did You Know Department

Dear Readers - As some of your know, I sometimes try to inform you about something that would affect your parks and trails. The document below is about the "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" that may be on the ballot in Ohio this November. I'd appreciate it if you'd read it.

TABOR/TEL and You – What’s is this all about? “TABOR” is an acronym for “Taxpayers Bill Of Rights” “TEL” is an acronym for “Tax and Expenditure Limitation.” Both mean the same thing; a limitation on what communities, school districts, park districts can spend.
Why I am telling you this? TABOR/TEL is going to be on the ballet this November as a Ohio Constitutional Amendment. It is a part of Mr. Kenneth Blackwell’s (Ohio Republican candidate for Governor) platform. (Dayton Daily News 05/22/06 - It is possible that the TEL amendment will be pulled from the ballot by Ken Blackwell)

Why is this of any interest to you and why am I writing about it? If TABOR/TEL is on the ballot for this Fall you’ll have an opportunity to vote for either Mr. Ken Blackwell (R) or Mr. Ted Strickland (D) for Governor. You will also have to vote for or against TABOR/TEL. I don’t care who you vote for to be Governor. BUT I'd like to you to consider VOTING AGAINST TABOR/TEL for the following reasons.

This amendment to the Ohio Constitution takes control of the management of your tax dollars out of the hands of your local elected officials and reduces their ability to fund projects that you want. For example, let's say that your Parks and Recreation Department wants to build a new multi-use trail in your area. They apply for a grant and they get it. Now normally they'd allocate from the funds that they have been voted by you the matching 10% or 20% the grant requires and they build the trail.

But under TABOR/TEL any funds not already programmed have to be returned to you in the form of a tax refund. So any money they aren't already using for managing your parks cannot be used for anything else. In order to build the trail they will have to request and receive the grant and THEN: they have to put on the ballot the funding for your trail.
AND the language of TEL says that 50% of the "registered voters" have to vote Yes. TEL doesn't say 50% of those voting it says of those registered. Meaning if there are 10,000 registered voters in an area and 50% of them turn out to vote. 4,000 vote for the levy and 1,000 vote against. Normally the levy would pass. But if TABOR/TEL is approved the levy fails. Why? Those people who did not vote in effect have voted NO on the levy. It doesn't matter that 80% of those voting approved the levy. In effect this means is that most tax levies on the ballot will fail.

In an analysis done recently by one county government from May 2002 to February 2006 there were 35 local issues (School, Fire Protection, City/Village Operating, Township Road/Bridge, EMS Issues, MRDD Issues, Library Issues and County Health Services.) Under the current law 27 were approved or a 77.% approval rate. Then they took the same elections with the same numbers of votes cast under TABOR/TEL. Under these conditions of the 35 tax issues on the ballot 1 was approved and 34 failed a 2.86% approval rating.

This is why your Republican Governor and 2 Republican Senators have come out against TABOR/TEL. Almost every paper in Ohio is against TABOR/TEL. And almost every Ohio School Board, County Government, City, Town and Village Government, Local Library and Parks District is solidly against TABOR/TEL. Because if this bill passes their source of funds via the ballot will be overturned!
North Country Trail Association selects Great Miami River Recreation Trail as their new route – The North Country Trail, one of several multi-state trails in the USA has selected the Great Miami River Recreation Trail in Miami and Montgomery Counties to be a part of their route through Ohio . The Ohio Buckeye Association is also going to use our trail system as a part of their Ohio route.
The North County Trail will run through Miami County , and then cross into Montgomery County on the trail through Taylorsville MetroPark. This trail is planned to be connected to Island MetroPark in downtown Dayton , Then the North County Trail will follow the Mad River Recreation Trail East to Eastwood MetroPark and will then follow the Three Counties Trail (nominal name). This trail will be built from Eastwood to Huffman MetroPark, follow along the existing Wright Brothers Bikeway and continue into Clark County to connect to the existing Buck Creek Trail. The North Country Trail will travel South on the Simon Kenton Trail to downtown Springfield where it will connect to the Little Miami Scenic Trail South. It should be understood that some of these trails are in the planning stage, but when built the fact that a national trail is running along our trails should bring in more users for our local trail system.

Announcements of Upcoming Cycling Events
(Also See Events Page )

Xenia Cycling Classic (20 – 23 July 2006) A family oriented set of rides in and around Xenia , Ohio . The Classic provides for both on multi-use trail as well as off. All rides start and end at the Greene County Fairgrounds just North of Xenia Station. 500 registrants only so get yourself registered early.
- 20 July (Thursday) [Northeast] Prairie Grass Trail (AKA Ohio to Erie Trail) - Xenia Station to Cedarville, South Charleston and London . Up to 62 miles on trail plus an off-trail Covered Bridge Tour.
- 21 July (Friday) [North] on the Little Miami Scenic Trail to Yellow Springs. Up to 25 miles round trip. Optional additional ride to Clifton Mill from Young's Jersey Dairy an additional 26 miles.
- 22 July (Saturday) [South] Little Miami Scenic Trail - This trail can give you up to 100 miles round trip along one of the United States' most scenic trails. Stops include Spring Valley , Corwin, Morrow and Loveland . There are lots of ice cream stops and restaurants along the way.
- 23 July (Sunday)- [West] Ride the Creekside Trail West from Xenia Station to Eastwood MetroPark. From there ride the Mad River Recreation Trail West to downtown Dayton where you can ride the Great Miami River Recreation Trail around historic Dayton, Ohio.

Regards to all,

Thomas J. Recktenwalt
Webmaster
Miami Valley RailTrails
http://www.miamivalleytrails.org

If you find these newsletters and my Miami Valley RailTrails website of use to you, please pass the information on to your friends and neighbors who might enjoy our wonderful system of multi-use trails in Southwest Ohio. Then they can write me and get on the mailing list to get their own copy of the newsletter. Our trail system is wonderful for walking, running, in-line skating, birding, fishing and cycling and on some trails horseback riding. You see more wildlife from one of our trails than most anyplace else. All of my newsletters are posted to my website at the same time I send you this text version. The URL for your use is: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/join_our_mailing_list.htm

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