Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter January 2008

Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter
January 2008

It’s Tuesday 5 January 2008 and It's Snowing! Here is the news about trails in the Miami Valley. 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

Trail Detours Caused By Road Construction – As many of you know, major construction by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) have caused some trail closures in the Miami Valley and this will continue. I found a resource for your reading pleasure. It’s the ODOT District 7 Construction Projects in the Miami Valley webpage . You can click on any project to find out when it’s “supposed” to be completed. For example if you click on “I-70 Huber Heights Lane Add” you’ll be taken to a page that estimates that the Great Miami River Recreation Trail (Northern Section) that runs through Taylorsville MetroPark is planned to be opened in July 2008. For you cyclists that use this trail, the opening should be of some relief.
Tipp City Trail Now On Contract - Tipp City signed a contract with Finfrock Construction in January 2008 for $134,865 to built the planned one half mile trail expansion from Canal Locks Park in downtown Tipp City South to Kyle Park.

Website Changes and Improvements

New History Webpage – I am still working on a history webpage that will show the year by year construction progress of the Miami Valley Trails System. I am using my newsletters from Miami Valley RailTrails as well as the ones I wrote when I built and maintained the Bike Miami Valley website. Since my website is the only comprehensive store of information about all of the trails development in the 12 counties of the Miami Valley I think it is sure to have some historical value. I also have received documents from my friends in Clark and Greene Counties parks departments which are their records of trail building. I am using them to verify the data I already have. The page is up on the website if you’d like to look at it. It is not finished and any constructive suggestions will be appreciated by this author.
Revision to Statistics Page – For the past four years I have been collecting and displaying on my Statistics Page, the data that the web-server computer (the computer that hosts my website) provides to me. The data has basically been raw “Hits”. Last year (2007) I got an account with Goggle’s Web Analytics. I have started learning what this website analysis tool has to offer and I am updating my Statistics Page. I do this mostly for my own use and partially to show you that the website is being used. I will keep collecting the raw “hit count” data but I will report to you more of the Analytics information so that we both know how the website is doing. See a sample of monthly data from Google on the page

Photos & Information Wanted Department

None this month.

Did you Know Department?

Other Communities Have Trouble Building Trails - I read recently in the Columbus Dispatch that the Thomas Evans Foundation is having a problem building a trail through Heath in Linking County. In the Newark Advocate article about the same trail it said that some residents were “digging up” property records back to the early 1800’s to keep the trail being built past their property. You can read the Advocate article [Click Here] The trail is a 6.6 mile section from Hopewell Drive in Heath to US 40 in Hebron. And, as usual, some citizens confuse law abiding cyclists with wild, bikers who are out to “rape, pillage and desecrate the countryside.” It is unfortunate that trail developers have to go through this fear and distrust problem almost every time they want to build a multi-use trail.

Announcements of Upcoming Events

Five Rivers MetroParks "Adventure Summit" - 8 -10 February 2008 Wright State University Student Union- Join Five Rivers MetroParks Outdoors staff with outdoor firms and presenters to learn about outdoor pursuits. Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission (MVRPC) plans to have the new Miami Valley Trails Maps available for this event. So come and get a brand new map of the trails in the Miami Valley!
The new map will show every existing trail in the Miami Valley area centered on Dayton. Those trails being built in 2008 will show as solid lines on the map. All trails to be built between 2008 - 2011 will be shown in dotted lines. You will be able to download a map (to look at) online, order one online or go to the following places to get one free. Several bicycle shops have ordered them as well for your use.
- Centerville-Washington Park District
- City of Beavercreek
- City of Piqua
- City of Springfield
- City of Troy
- Clark County- Transportation Coordinating Committee (TCC)
  - National Trail Parks & Recreation
- Concord Township, Miami County
- Five Rivers MetroParks
- Miami Conservancy District
- Miami County Park District

Webpage of the Month

This is a new area of the month events page. Here each month I'll tell you about a page on this website that you may have never seen

Little Miami Scenic Trail Webpages - Several of the large trails in the area, including the Little Miami Scenic Trail (LMST) have more than one webpage used to describe them. I do this for several reasons. First, if I tried to put all of the information about the LMST on one page you'd be waiting forever for the page to load. Each page may have 20 or 30 pictures on it. Second, I want each trail section webpage to stand on its own. If you are interested in the trail South from Spring Valley to Corwin, why should you look at information about the trail North. from Xenia to Yellow Springs. The LMST Home Page includes 14 picks for trail sections within the entire 76 mile (and growing) trail. Here's what it looks like. [Note: This is not a working page, just a picture]
As you can see, on the right side of the page we are traveling South [DOWN]. On the left side of the menu we are traveling North [UP]. You can navigate from trail section to trail section, or key in on just the section of trail you want to visit by using this menu. Each page is labeled with its name and its page number.

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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For more information on each Web Page or Trail click on its name.