Dear Friends: It’s Wednesday 14 October 2009 and I have
trails news for you. By the way, this website started in October 1997, so the website has existed for 12 years. It started when I attended the dedication of the Creekside Trail in October 1997. I introduced myself to the [then director] of Greene County Parks; Mr. Tim Leiweg. I told him I had done some research on his new trail in the web and could find no mention of it. I then asked him if he had a website for the Creekside Trail? He said No. I asked if he wanted a website? He said Yes.
“…And now you know the rest of the story…”
New Trail Construction North of Middletown - The Great Miami River Recreation Trail (Warren & Butler Counties) is growing. The City of Middletown is almost finished a 1.92 mile extension of the trail that takes it North of the current terminus at State Route 4 North of the Middletown Municipal Airport and ends at State Route 73. The $433K construction is planned to be completed by the end of September 2009. I was told that engineering is going on to connect from the trail's Northern end at SR-73, to Baxter Road in Franklin, where the trail South from Dayton ends now. See
also: Great Miami River Recreation Trail (Warren & Butler Counties)
Clark County
News
Tecumseh Trail Phase 1
- (City of New Carlisle from Lake Avenue to the
Wot-A-Dog) Continues Construction – The contractor is hoping to finish paving this year and finish the trail in Spring 2010. I will get new photos of the finished trail as soon as I can.
Tecumseh Trail Phase 2 (New Carlisle from
Wot-A-Dog to the Tecumseh YMCA) - This trail segment will run South from the
Wot-A-Dog alongside the East side of State Route 235 to the Tecumseh YMCA outside Park Layne. This segment is close to beginning design. The planning is to have a design contract let by January 2010.
Tecumseh Trail Phase 3 (Bethel Twp/Clark County Study) – This study is to see what trail alternatives there are to continuing the trail in Bethel Township. Public meetings are tentatively planned for 10/29, 1/14 & 3/11 at Park Lane Elementary School. More detail will be provided as plans for these public meetings develop.
Darke County
News
New Funding for Darke County – The Darke County Parks Department received an award
from Clean Ohio Fund of $188K to start construction of what I have begun to call the
Ohio To Indiana Trail. They are still waiting for funding to purchase the 11 miles of railbed from Greenville West to the existing trail in Union City; the
Union City Gateway. To the East the new funds will allow for the construction of about
two miles of trail through Gettysburg and within one half mile of
Bradford. Construction is hoped to start in Spring 2010.
Greene County
News
New Trail Grant for Beavercreek – The City of Beavercreek has been working for some years to build what is called “Beavercreek Station.” They already had
received $427K of federal funding from MVRPC and were awarded an additional $150K from ODNR to construct the building, parking lot, lighting and signage. The “Station” will be located on the West side of N. Fairfield Drive in Beavercreek just South of Maxwell Hardware which adjoins the trail. Construction is planned to start in 2010. See “Funded Trails projects”
Miami
County News
Ongoing
Construction in Miami County - I updated all of you with the ongoing
construction in Miami County in my
September Newsletter . The construction is on-going on the Great
Miami River Recreation Trail (Miami County). This page
gives you details on every section of the trail in Miami County.
Montgomery
County News
Riverscape
Bike Hub Under Construction - Five Rivers MetroParks is working
on expanding the existing RiverScape MetroPark in downtown Dayton with a
Bike Hub building. The description says: "Development of bicycle hub and recreation trail improvements in downtown
Dayton, to include pavement, trees, plantings, turf, furnishings and fountains, and associated site
work and utilities. $290,839." The Bike Hub will include bike
lockers, locker rooms for belongings and showers for cyclists. Plans are
to complete the facility by 2010.
Approved Multi-Use Trail Projects page Updated - I have updated this page with the completion of the trail from Middletown 1.92 miles North to State Route 73. This construction is a part of the Great Miami River Recreation Trail [GMRRT] in Warren & Butler Counties, which when completed, will stretch over 90 miles from Sidney (Shelby County) South through Miami, Montgomery, Warren and Butler Counties to Hamilton. I have also updated the status of several other construction projects in the Miami Valley.
10 October 2009.
Web Statistics Page Updated
- I updated the data on this page from Google Analytics. I now have a "Dashboard Report"
on the page that covers the first nine months of 2009 (January to September). There is also a live Quantcast Report on the page showing the daily number of people that access the website.
New Trail Page for Middletown – Because of
generosity of Mr. Rick Lyons of Middletown, I am able to bring to you a new webpage that shows the additional 1.92 miles of trail built by the City of Middletown North of where the trail ended at State Route 4 North of the Middletown Municipal Airport. The new trail goes around the old landfill. The Great Miami River makes a semi-circular loop and on a map it looks like a thumb. The inside of the “thumb” is the old landfill. The trail comes out on State Route 73 also know as North Verity Parkway. Plans are being made to continue construction North to Franklin to connect to the Southern end of the trail there at Baxter Drive.
Regional
Land Use Planning Initiative - Miami Valley Regional Planning
Commission (MVRPC) has started a planning
process called "Going Places." Their new website says: "This new initiative is to implement a conceptual land use planning process to develop a shared future land use vision, represented by the conceptual region-based growth framework for the Miami Valley
Region." They will be holding a set of Public
Workshops (See schedule) to discuss their plans with all of you.
They say: "The purpose of these workshops is to bring people who live
and work in the Region together to discuss their visions of how the Region
should develop in the future." Also see their "Going
Places Overview Brochure" (Adobe Acrobat 1.15Mb)
Parks Levee in Miami County 3 November 2009
- There is a Miami County Parks District levee on the ballot of those living in Miami County, 3 November 2009. I recommend you supporting your parks district. No only have they been good stewards of the parks in Miami County, but they have improved them as well as expanding them. And most important to me, they have been very effective in supporting the development of multi-use trails in Miami County. Because of them [and other groups] we will have a 22 mile trail from Montgomery County North to Shelby County within a year or two. So vote for the Parks Levee!
Parks Levee in Montgomery County November 2009 – Five Rivers MetroParks [in Montgomery County] is also having a request for funds on the ballot this November. Again I recommend that those who live in Montgomery County support this levee.
Trail Count Data for
2009 is becoming available - The Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, with the help of Greene County Parks, Five Rivers MetroParks and Miami County Parks District along with several local cities, performed a trail count on Sunday 26 July, and Wednesday 29 July & 12 August 2009. Preliminary data is now becoming available. I have placed two charts from MVRPC on my Trail Statistics page for your edification. On one day, Sunday 26 July, 2009 the total number of trail users exceeded 9,000.
Google Earth
Now Has Trail Names – I use Google Earth to find new trails under construction. I also use it when I am writing about a trail and I’m not sure where that bit of it that I am trying to envision goes? I was looking at the Cardinal Greenway Trail in Indiana recently, and I noticed that it was labeled “Cardinal Greenway.” So I immediately looked at some of our trails in Southwest Ohio and they were not labeled with the trail’s name. So I wrote Google Earth’s help area and pointed this fact out. Today, about two weeks later, I was looking at the new trail being constructed from State Route 4, just North of Middletown, 1.92 miles North to State Route 73 and I noticed that the trail there was labeled “Great Miami River Recreation Trail.” I then looked at some more of our trails and Guess What? They’re all labeled! Wow!
Trike Bent Rally Xenia Ride - ( 23 October 2009) - The Bent Riders will be having a ride starting at Xenia Station, Friday 23 October at 9:00 AM. See the link above for more information about this event. They are also having recumbent bike and trike races at Kilkare Raceway on 10/24 and 10/25/09.
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 read the page.
Greenville Creek Trail &
Union City Gateway - This month, I’d like to direct your attention to trails in Darke County.
Earlier in this newsletter, I noted above, that Darke County Parks has received some funding to start building a trail East from Greenville
though Gettysburg and within one half mile of Bradford. Darke County has been working for some time to secure right-of-way and start building trails. So far they have completed two projects whose web pages I’d like you to take a look at. They are:
Greenville Creek Trail – This trail, in Alice Bish Park downtown Greenville is a short but beautiful trail. It is only one half mile but is quite scenic and is the first multi-use trail built in Darke County.
Union City Gateway – This trail, which is only one mile long, is strategically important since it crosses the state line between Union City, Ohio to Union City, Indiana. Eventually it will be connected East to Greenville and hopefully, in time, all of the way to Piqua. There it will connect to the Great Miami River Recreation Trail. In Indiana, it is hoped that the trail can connect someday West to Marion to meet the Cardinal Greenway Trail.
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
