Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter April 2011

Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter
April 2011

Dear Friends: It’s Friday 15 April and I have some trail news for you. Please continue reading.

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

Trails Reopen in Clark County – The parks and the trails in Clark County, especially the Little Miami Scenic Trail and the Prairie Grass Trail, reopened on 1 April 2011. The Park’s District is still not out of the woods. The trail maintenance is now being performed by volunteers; primarily the Greater Springfield Friends of the Trail. The Park's District will try again to pass the Park's Levy that was defeated last year. The levy would have asked each household in Clark County for approximately $11 a year! Good Grief, Charlie Brown!
Ohio River Trail Ribbon Cutting 28 April 2011- Two segments of the Ohio River Trail will be dedicated Thursday, 28 April 28, 2011 in Cincinnati. They are two segments of the Ohio River Trail – Wilmer Avenue to Carrel Street in Cincinnati, and Sutton Road to Five Mile Road in Anderson Township. The Ohio River Trail is planned to run West from the Village of New Richmond ending eventually in Eastern Cincinnati. The trail will run through Pierce Township, Clermont County and Anderson Township. A Northern spur will connect this trail to the Little Miami Scenic Trail just South of Lunken Airport. To the West this trail will connect to the Purple People Bridge in downtown Cincinnati. The trail will then cross the Ohio River to Newport Kentucky next to the Newport Aquarium (A Must See for visitors). After the two dedications the trail will be 6.5 miles long. See their Flyer Here. See my webpage Ohio River Trail Here.
Meetings to Develop the Oasis Corridor – What is this and what does it mean to you? The Oasis Corridor is an old railbed that runs from downtown Cincinnati East to the suburbs. This organization would like to put a “light rail” (streetcars) on the right-of-way to aid commuters getting to downtown from the Eastern suburbs. Since it (the railbed) is 50’ wide there is plenty of room to carry the streetcars and the Ohio River Trail from Lunken Airport to downtown at Sawyer’s Point to cross the Ohio River at the Purple People Bridge. The meetings were held April 5 – 8th but you can still provide input into the process. See their Website Here (Or Above)
Buck Creek Trail Closed Due to Construction - Due to the demolition of the old International Harvester (IH) building adjacent to the trail just East of the Lagonda Av. bridge, the trail is closed. It's not just marked off it is covered in debris. I do not know how long it will be closed. But I have been told that any damage will be fixed and that the demolition company is helping with improvements in drainage problems in that area. I'll let you know when the trail re-opens.
30 Foot Sinkhole Closes Trail in Middletown - I was informed by two of Tom's Spies that the Great Miami River Recreation Trail near Middletown had a 30 foot wide by 15 foot deep sinkhole next to it which closed the trail. Our informants are Mr. Rick Lyons and Mr. Aaron Rourke of the Friends of the Little Miami State Park. As of this writing, I do not know if the trail has been re-opened but the Middletown Journal article on 17 March, 2011; 30-foot-wide sinkhole develops above sewer pipe along bike path by Jessica Heffner said that the repair would cost $265,000! I'll let you know when the trail is reopened (it might be repaired by now), but if you ride the trail in that area please be advised.

Website Changes and Improvements

Ohio River Trail Page Update - I have updated my Ohio River Trail page to reflect the dedication of two sections of trail on 28 April 2011. Normally, I put up a webpage for a trail that does that have a website of its own. My webpage was created in 2006 or earlier. Since that date, a website has been built in Cincinnati called the Ohio River Way. Normally, when an organization gets its own website to describe their trail, I tend to take down my webpage on the subject. But since their website does not seem to have been updated since 2009, I think I'll keep my Ohio River Trail webpage up for a little while yet.

Photos & Information Wanted Department

None this month

Did you Know Department?

Mr. Shawn Richardson’s Bike Route Numbering System for Ohio’s Bike Trails (Copyright © Shawn E. Richardson 2010) and Ohio’s Bike Route Number System & Trail Mileage Log (Copyright © Shawn E. Richardson 2010) are now available on the website. I told you about these documents in last month’s newsletter. Now you can read them for yourself. As many of you know the bike trails in the Miami Valley are marked in accordance with Shawn’s numbering system. See About Bike Names and Route numbers

Announcements of Upcoming Events

See Upcoming Events Area

Bike With A Ranger - (Bicycle Tours And Interpretive Programs) - This all Summer event allows you to see historical aviation venues in the Dayton area accompanied with a National Parks Service Ranger. See Their Brochure (Here or above) for events and times.
Friends of the Little Miami State Park - They are promoting their first fundraising event, a Pancake Breakfast for the trail. Saturday, April 16, 8:00AM to 11:00AM at the Corwin Peddler (Directions to the Peddler) , 69 Maple Street, Corwin (Near Route 42 at Waynesville) $7.00 adults, $5.00 children. The "Friends" are a volunteer group who work to maintain the Little Miami Scenic Trail in the Park (Ohio Department of Natural Resources). This is short notice
Miami Valley Cycling Summit 20 May 2011 - The 2011 Miami Valley Cycling Summit, will be held on May 20th from 10-4:30 at the Kroc Center in Dayton. There will be at least 10 organizations at the table this year from across the Miami Valley. Come and see how the power of cycling drives economic development in communities both large and small! The Miami Valley Cycling Summit will bring together nearly 400 cycling enthusiasts from across the Miami Valley, the state, and the nation. See their Website Here (or above)
About Cycling Events in the Miami Valley - Bicycling season is upon us. If you'd like to get some publicity here for your event, this is all you have to do. Send me the details of all of your events, "Who, what, when, where, why and So What?" I'll add them to my "Bicycling Events" page and a few weeks or a month before the event I'll add a "blurb" [or you can provide a press release] and I'll feature it in my monthly newsletter.

Webpage of the Month

Every month in this portion of my newsletter, I link to one webpage (or the beginning page of a group of webpages that refer to one trail) in this space. I do this so that my readers, who may not have ever seen that webpage get an opportunity to find it (and perhaps find some use of it).

Railtrails, Towpaths and Other Trails in Ohio. - This month my selection is my listing of trails in Ohio. The pages include an alphabetical list of every trail in Ohio. Or if you’d like to look by regions (such as Southwest or Northeast for example) you can click on this page to see my Counties & Regions in Ohio pages. There you can select a region of Ohio and then from it select which county you are interested in. You see a listing of every trail in that county. I provide these pages to my users who would like to ride somewhere else in Ohio besides the Miami Valley. I don’t know why they would want to do that since we have about one half of all the trails (and the best ones I think) in Ohio. The maps are courtesy of the Ohio Department of Ohio Transportation Biking Page. I have a link from each picture to their webpage of trails in Ohio. Thanks ODOT!

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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