Madrid - High Trestle Trail & Boone County updates

Sat November 20 2010
Posted Nov 21, 2010
5,092

Madrid, IA High Trestle Trail

[BIKEIOWA note: This is a fine example of how a community is stepping up to make their town better for trail users! Madrid is the closest town to the High Trestle Bridge and will see a ton of bike traffic in the years to come!] From Rebecca Roorda To Friends of Boone County Trails, A lot is happening with the trail in Boone County and Madrid.

High Trestle Trail concrete: The concrete has been poured between Madrid and the bridge including the section spanning QF Lane (still not open - construction going on with concrete finish work, etc. so please stay out of construction area).
Parking at QF: The Boone County Conservation staff have constructed a small parking area at QF Lane and the trail including a couple paved wheelchair accessible spots and several gravel parking spots. This parking area will help keep cars off the road where there really is not much room to park safely. (Again, not yet open as it is in the barricaded construction area.)
Horse path signs: The brown and white horse path signs and arrows were installed yesterday in both the Madrid and Boone County sections of the trail, thanks to Dave Terrell and the BCC staff. There are still a couple more to go up in Madrid where we need to set new posts. Having the signs up will be a big improvement for all trail users, showing the designated path for horses and letting other trail users know they may encounter horses.
Trail etiquette: Duly Zwievel and Kay Snopek are refining an educational trail etiquette piece to help different types of trail users better understand each other. We are also putting up one or more trail etiquette signs at the Madrid trailhead. Thanks to Mid National Graphics for doing the signs at cost.
Trail tips signs: The group as a whole is working on coming up with some short and catchy slogans to provide information to trail users about how to safely navigate around each other. We are looking for short sayings like Alycia Carlsborg's suggestion of "Go slow and say hello" so please send me any suggestions you have (think Burma Shave signs).
Murphy Creek Culvert: Work has started on repairing the Murphy Creek Culvert between Madrid and the big bridge. Contractors have been grubbing and clearing this week and will get started on the main repairs as soon as they can.
Madrid 4th Street access: Concrete forms had been put in. Unfortunately the weather has slowed down our contractor who is trying to squeeze a season's worth of work into only a couple of months of good construction weather...but we are getting there! Thanks to contractor Zach Dalton for donating his time.
Madrid 3rd Street access: The new path has been roughed in with lots of earth work done. Plans are to install a culvert and put in rock at this point. Eventually this access will be paved but can't be until the drainage issues are resolved. Thanks to Don Lincoln and Jim Harney for donating their labor for parts of the project.
Drainage: It has become clear that the drainage issues along the trail in the Madrid downtown area really must be resolved. The temporary fix - which we need to do as soon as possible - is dredge out the drainage ditches so the culverts actually allow water to drain. The permanent fix is to install a concrete pipe between the State Street and Main Street bridges. We need to find grant money for that as we estimate it will cost at least $35,000.
Thanks to Keith Kudej for planning and organizing construction on the Madrid access points as well as picking up a shovel to help. This has been a huge job for him and as we all know, in all construction projects there are unexpected problems that have to be ironed out. We appreciate his hanging in there and using his skills and expertise, not to mention countless hours of his time, to getting them solved.
Kathy Kalmoe has completed the ceramic tiles for the Johnson Family Trailhead/Dalander Park sign and Rollie Berg is beginning work on the steel frame. This is going to be a really beautiful piece of work!

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