The
Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission’s (MVRPC) Long Range
Transportation Plan (LRTP-2030) received approval by
the Federal Highway Administration. They are required to re-submit their
plans every four years. Why is this of interest to you? Because in Chapter
VII of the plan are all of the planned multi-use trails for Montgomery, Miami and GreeneCounties for the near term
(2008–2011) and the long range plans. You can see all of them on MVRPC’s
website at http://www.mvrpc.org/lrp/lrpProjects.php
or download them here.
Little Miami Scenic Trail Broken in Two
Places - The trail is closed South of Hedges Road for 2 miles and
North of Corwin for one mile as follows:
Little Miami Scenic Trail Closed at Hedges Road –The Little Miami Scenic Trail is closed just South of Hedges Road (Southern border of Greene County) to Richland Road (about 2 miles). You can get on the trail at Roxanna-New Burlington Road or at Corwin South of the area. There is some issue with a bridge in that area.
Little Miami Scenic Trail closed North of Corwin - The trail will be closed from the Corwin staging area to the
North for about 1 mile due to pavement deterioration. Riders should probably plan on staging at Corwin for points south and Xenia Hub for points north. I will send information to you when the trail is open again at both of the closures.
Bellbrook
to Spring Valley Bikepath – I attended the informational meeting that was held this week in Bellbrook. Greene County Parks is planning to build this approximately 4 mile trail from Sackett-Wright Park to the Little Miami Scenic Trail at Spring Valley. The trail will run alongside SR-725 and will cost approximately 4 to 5 million dollar when it is build in 2013.
Look at the Greene
County Parks Page Look on the right side of the home page about 2/3 down and you can download and view the three Project Display Boards.
Canal
Locks Park to Kyle Park (Tipp City) Completed - This 3,000 foot
trail section from Tipp City's Canal Locks Park downtown on SR-571 South to
Kyle Park . I will be getting new pictures and description to add to the
Tipp City Trail's page soon.
Tipp
City Nature Center to connect to Section
1 of Trail - This section which is known as Section
3, will connect the trail in Tipp City to Troy. The contractor
is currently laying asphalt on this trail section and it is expected
that the trail will be completed in November 2008. Trail sections are as
follows:
Multi-Use
Trail Approved Projects Page – I have added information for the just approved MVRPC Long Range Transportation Plan (2030) to the page. In Chapter VII of the plan are all of the planned multi-use trails for Montgomery, Miami and Greene Counties for the near term (2008–2011) and the long range plans. I cross-referenced all of the funded projects against what I already had on the page. I provided a link to the MVRPC map that has all of the projects referenced on it and I added a column to the first two tables that gives you the map reference for each project.
Trails in Miami Valley Page – I added new information from the MVRPC Long Range Transportation Plan to the planned list of trails in Miami County and updated some financial figures. I also updated planned completion dates for projects that should be done this year.
What’s New? Page
– I added information about the approval of the MVRPC Long Range Transportation Plan and the Trails in Miami Valley pages. For your information any time I make a substantive change to a page on my website, you’ll find it on the “What’s New?” page.
Statistics Page Updated
– I have had a “Statistics” page on this website since I moved to this server in 2004. For the next
four years (2004- 2007) I tracked activity on the website with “web hits”. I found out later that they were not a good measure of who uses the website. So in 2007 I started an account at Google Analytics, which tracks actual person visits. I placed on the statistics page an Adobe file for 31 March 2008 and a 30 June
2008 report which tracked statistics for 3 and 6 months of 2008. I will place on the page a 9 month report (Jan – Sep 2008) at the end of September. In the last month or so, I started an account with QuantCast
which provides other demographic data on my users. What all this is about is that I am trying to find out
“Who Are My Readers?” and “What Do They Like (or) Dislike About The Website?” My statistics
show that most visitors only stay on the website for about 4 minutes and look at about 4 pages. So, this is
Your Opportunity to tell me what you like about the website and what you don’t like about the website. You see this website is about you, not me. If the website works for you, fine. Please let me know? If the website’s navigation (for example) is hard for you to figure out, please let me know?
Miami-2-Miami Trail
Updates- I have added new maps with annotations and labels to show construction progress in Butler and Hamilton counties on this important trail that will link the
Great Miami River Recreation Trail at Hamilton and will run East through Fairfield, Liberty, West Chester and Deerfield Townships to the
Little Miami Scenic Trail at South Lebanon.
I have been notified by OKI that they plan to have a meeting in October 2008
with all involved parties to discuss the progress of the Miami-2-Miami
Trail. I plan to attend and from the results of that meeting, inform all of
you of the status of this 84 miles (when completed) trail.
New Bicycle Club in Dayton - There is a new bicycle club in Dayton. It’s called the
Major Taylor Cycling Club
(Dayton). It is named to honor Marshall W. “Major” Taylor a pioneering black cyclist who had to go to Europe to compete after discrimination in the United States, made it impossible for him to ride in bicycle races here.
A Dear Abby Article You Should Read – A Dayton cyclist wrote Dear Abby and his letter was published in the Life Section of the Dayton Daily News, 17 August 2008. Here is his letter and Dear Abby’s reply quoted in full.
It's
nice to see that a Dayton cyclist likes riding to work. Dear Abby's
reply is right on the money as well. She says: " ...until both
motorists and cyclists are better educated...television and print media
could be a significant help..." I agree. Perhaps we can get some
media help on this.
"Dear Abby:
I want to thank all the wonderful people who make biking to work possible. I am a mid-40s professional and never thought I could do this, but I am. My goal was to bike at least once a week to work – 15 miles each way – and I have been doing it since May and loving it!
Thank you to the drivers who respect bikers, the municipalities who planned for safe cycling and the companies that provide showers and lickers. It has been so much fun. I never thought I could do this because of work schedules, kid’s activities and weather, but with a little thought it works. It’s good fun exercise. Help the environment, save energy and get fit, America! --
George in Dayton, Ohio.
Dear George:
I’m pleased that you are enjoying your health new lifestyle and I’m all for physical fitness and I’ll all for physical fitness. However, I hesitate to encourage large numbers of people to embrace your challenge until both cyclists and motorists are better educated about the rules of the road.
Communities need to act now to provide safe bicycle lanes and paths for people trying to conserve gasoline. Awareness needs to be raised among drivers about the rights of bikers. The television and print media could be a significant help in this effort, and I hope they’ll take the opportunity to inform their audiences.”
Clean Ohio Vote on November 2008 ballot.
- The Clean Ohio Fund that has done so much to build new trails in Ohio is on the November 2008 ballot. May I recommend all of you look at the information on their website and consider voting for the fund.
What Is Your “Neighborhood Walk
Score?" – Ken McCall of the Dayton Daily News had a column 8/31/08 that asked the same question. There is a website
(link above) that will allow you to input your address and it will tell you how
walk-able your neighborhood is. Why I think this is interesting is that if your neighborhood has a low walk score, then it probably has a low
bikeability score as well. This might be useful as a planning tool to see which neighborhoods need help most in making it easier to walk and bike to shop, school and work.
Bicycles in Flight at
WACO Museum (Troy) - 23 August - 19 October 2008) - View a timeline
of historical bicycles and displays that speak to the connections of the
bicycle and aviation. This exhibit is jointly presented in collaboration
with the
National Parks ,local collectors and the WACO Historical Society.
Prairie Grass Trail (AKA Ohio
To Erie Trail) - This trail called locally the Prairie Grass Trail
is also a part of the Ohio To Erie Trail. The current trail runs from Xenia
Station Northeast through Cedarville, South Charlestown and ends 6.5 miles
East of London, about 2 miles from the Franklin County line (Columbus). When
completed the Ohio To Erie Trail will start at Cincinnati at the Purple
People Bridge over the Ohio River to Kentucky. This is the start of the Ohio
River Trail and will run North along the existing Little
Miami Scenic Trail to Xenia and from there to Columbus on the Prairie
Grass Trail. See the Ohio
To Erie Trail website for more information
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
Miami Valley Trails System, the 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 this 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
40Kb) and the map that goes along with it; 