Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter April 2009

Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter
April 2009

It’s Tuesday 14 April 2009 (Tax Day is Tomorrow) ). Have you gotten your taxes done? I have a LOT of news for you. Please read on.

Trail Construction and Improvements.	Website Changes and Improvements
Photos & Information Wanted Section	Did You Know Department
Announcements of Upcoming Cycling Events	Webpage of the Month

Trail Construction and Improvements

RiverScape Updates in the works – This year Five Rivers MetroParks plans to upgrade RiverScape by adding a regional bike hub. The hub will contain showers, lockers for those who pay a membership fee and at least 35 bicycle lockers. The other major portion of the upgrade is to have an outdoor entertainment pavilion. The construction will start this year and will be finished in 2010. Click above or Click Here to read more about the 27 March 2009 story (Dayton Daily News)
News from Friends of Little Miami Scenic Park - They have targeted the three bridges north of Hedges Road for their first project. These are the bridges that have caused so many accidents in recent years. They secured quotes but the cost is more money than they have available at this time The “Friends” are fund raising in order to pay for this work. If you’d like to donate to their worthy cause go to their website
City of Xenia Construction Updates for 2009
- City of Xenia Construction Updates for 2009 – Xenia received $50K from the federal government stimulus funds recently to upgrade the crossing between Xenia Station and the Prairie Grass Trail (AKA Ohio to Erie Trail). The crossing is at South Detroit Street (US-68) just East of the Xenia Station. They will be working to make the crossing safer for cyclists and pedestrians. The project will be programmed and coordinated with the Ohio Department of Transportation and will be ready for construction by the end of the year or early in 2010.
- Xenia- Jamestown Connector News- Xenia also plans to pave more of the Xenia-Jamestown Connector. They are going to start building the trail from the beginning of the Prairie Grass Trail Southeast first crossing Washington Street and then running East of and parallel to Home Avenue (US-68) to Birch Road. The segment from Jasper Road to Birch Road has been partially paved and will be completed in the spring of 2009. The City of Xenia has contracted with LJB Engineering to do the preliminary engineering for the proposed tunnel under U.S. 35 By-pass. This tunnel is slated for construction in 2011. The tunnel will connect the downtown section of the trail to the existing trail that ends at Hook Road Southeast of US-35. Until the tunnel is completed, the City of Xenia will provide a signed alternative route along U. S. 68 to direct cyclists to the bikepath at Hook Road.
- Towler Road Spur from Creekside Trail - This year, the City of Xenia will also finish the 1,000 linear feet of trail spur along the eastside of Towler Road that will connect to Creekside Trail. In 2008, the City constructed 2,000 linear feet of bikepath along Sheelin Road and along the east side of Towler Road into West Side Park. This project is being funded by Community Development Block Grants.

Website Changes and Improvements

New Interactive Maps Page on Website - For your viewing pleasure I have secured a set of interactive maps of all the trails in the Miami Valley. You can find water, restrooms and parking. The maps pages have pictures of the trails and even some videos of them. Be sure to take a look at this exciting new feature on the website!
Greenville Creek Trail (New Page) – I was asked to come to the City of Greenville (Darke County Seat) several weeks ago to attend a bicycle trail planning session. I was asked to provide the “big picture” about what is happening in multi-use trails in the Miami Valley. I was happy to be able to help the Darke County Park District. While I was there I took time to photograph an existing trail in Greenville; the Greenville Creek Trail and build a new webpage for this small but pretty trail. It will be the nucleus of the planned trail system in Darke County.
Union City Gateway- I added a link (Trails By County) to this trail that Is planned to be complete by the Summer of 2009. A dedication will be announced later. The plan is to have the Governor’s from both Indiana and Ohio in attendance. This trial is important because it is a state border crossing of what I am calling the “Ohio-Indiana Trail.”
Economic Benefits of Trails - I’ve added a new webpage to show some of the monetary benefits that trails bring to a community. This was information I received when I attended the Five Rivers MetroParks “Outdoor Summit” that was held at the Wright State University Student Union in February. If you have never attended one, you’ve missed out.
Ohio River Trail Gets Funding – I updated this page with information about the funds that “The Ohio River Way”; the organization that is working to get the trail finished from Lunken Airport to downtown Cincinnati at Sawyer’s Point at the Purple People Bridge. You see the Little Miami Scenic Trail, when finished, will end at Lunken Airport and the Ohio River Trail will continue West to Cincinnati and East to New Richmond, Ohio.
Trail Usage Statistics and Economic Benefits of Trails – I have been provided counter data for Little Miami Scenic Trail and I added it to the data I have been collecting for all of the trails in the Miami Valley that have counters on them.
Miami County Trails Updates – I attended a bike trails planning meeting in Miami County in March where we talked about additional trails development in the county. For some time the primary task was to plan, seek funds and build the main trail North from Taylorsville MetroPark in Montgomery to Tipp City, Troy and Piqua to Sidney in Shelby County. Almost all of the 22 miles of the Great Miami River Recreation Trail (GMRRT), in Miami County trail has been Built, Funded or Planned (see data below). For the past several years the township and city attendees of this monthly planning committee have also planned lateral trails connecting to the GMRRT. In the very near future I will be adding one or more webpages to show all of the details of those planned trails in Miami County and connections to Darke and Champaign counties.

Section Title	Location of Section in Miami County	Status of Section
Section 1	Dye Mill Road to Concord/Monroe township line	Completed June 2003
Section 2	Lytle to Eldean road	Planning stage
Section 3	Monroe Concord line to Tipp City	Completed September 2008
Section 4	Tipp City to Ross Road -South to Taylorsville MetroPark	May 2009 Contract to be awarded
Section 5	Eldean to Peterson Road	May 2009 Contract to be awarded
Section 6	Peterson Road to Piqua	Under Construction To be Completed 2009
Section 7	Johnson Farm to Lockington	Planning stage
Section 8	Piqua (River's Edge Trail)	Completed 2002
Section 9	Troy	Completed 2008
Section 10	Tipp City	Completed 2009
The links above either take you to Trails in Miami County page for trails as yet uncompleted or to the trail page for those that are done.

Photos & Information Wanted Department

None this month

Did you Know Department?

Cars are used for 75% of trips under one mile. - Blomberg, R., et al., 2004, Pedestrian transportation: A look forward, TRB A3B04: Committee on Pedestrians See Bikes Belong for more statistics.
May is Bike Month – More information on Events Page. - 15 May 2009 is Bike To Work Day. A list of biking events is available on the Events Page.
- Five Rivers MetroParks - is having a free pancake breakfast at the 2nd. Street Market. Riders will come from several areas to have breakfast together.
- Drive Less Live More - has information on their page as well.
Economic Benefits of Trails – In February’s Newsletter, I told you about “The Adventure Summit” that Five Rivers MetroParks sponsors every year. It is held at Wright State University’s Student Union, and if you have attended you’ve missed something good. Besides all the booths for bike clubs, rock climbers, Volksmarchers, organizations and the like, there were a number of good seminars. One that I attended was given by Mr. Rory Robinson of the National Parks Service (NPS). The title of his presentation was: Why Invest in Trails and Greenways? – The Economic and other Benefits” I was very impressed by Mr. Robinson’s facts about the economic benefits of railtrails. I was so impressed that I asked him to send me copies of the handouts that he used for him presentation. He sent them and I will be added some of all of them to my “Trail Usage Statistics and Economic Benefits of Trails

Announcements of Upcoming Events

See Upcoming Events Area

More About Courteous Mass – I told you about this group last month. They appeared in the Dayton Daily News on Saturday 4 April in Ken McCall’s column. The article is titled “Riders Stand up for rights”. It seems that Courteous Mass is a variant of Critical Mass. Critical Mass is a bike movement to take over city streets on the Friday’s in disregard for traffic laws and to tie up the rush hour commute home. Courteous Mass is different. It tries to publicize the fact that cyclists have a perfect right to ride on the streets (Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4511, Traffic Laws – Operation of Motor Vehicles). So the Courteous Mass cyclists ride together in an orderly fashion in accordance with all traffic regulations.
May is Bike Month - 15 May is Bike To Work Day and there will be events in several counties. Go to the Events Page for more information.

Webpage of the Month

New Interactive Maps Page - This month’s webpage is my new Interactive Maps Page. There you can find out almost anything about any trail in the Miami Valley. Take a look. I’m sure you’ll find the maps most useful to your trail use.

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 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

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