Mount Pleasant trail plan hits snag

Tue January 03 2006
Posted Jan 3, 2006
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Henry County Supervisors say their budget is too tight to apply for grant. By KILEY MILLER kmiller@thehawkeye.com MOUNT PLEASANT — The councilmen voted yes, but the supervisors said no. The morning after the Mount Pleasant City Council pledged another $150,000 toward the slowly lengthening bike trail around town, the Henry County Board of Supervisors declined Thursday to match that amount. The decision means the Henry County Trails Association won't apply for a $160,000 Regional Enhancement Grant to extend the trail to Saunder's Park. "I don't see ($150,000) in the future to spend," said Board of Supervisors Chairman Marc Lindeen. "I just don't see it." The present bike trail is broken into two chunks — a short section near radio station KILJ and a much larger piece looping around the high school and the Linden Heights housing development. This summer, the city of Mount Pleasant will extend the trail through East Lake Park. And, in 2008, a link from Walnut Street to Iowa Avenue will join the two sections. Trails association members ultimately hope to connect every school and park in Mount Pleasant via one 11–mile trail system that would include a spur to the county–owned park at Oakland Mills. The plan laid out for the supervisors Thursday called for construction in 2009 to pick up at the KILJ trail head and run northeast along Oakland Mills Road, finishing with a jog west toward Saunder's Park. "The (vision) right now is, if you get them to Yocum Lane, you have an existing road system there to get them into the park," said Mount Pleasant City Administrator Brent Schleisman. Continuing to the city pool and the Van Allen museum on Washington Street would have doubled the project cost, the administrator said. Schleisman and trails association leader Chuck Albright came to the courthouse Thursday with a tight time frame, hoping to submit their grant application by Saturday. That left the supervisors with little wiggle–room. And, in the end, they wiggled out of the deal. Oakland Mills Road is scheduled for an overhaul in 2008. The design includes paved shoulders to accommodate oversized farm equipment, or, for that matter, County Engineer Bill Belzer said, a family on bicycles. Belzer said more than a mile of county road can be paved for $150,000. From Albright's perspective, a paved shoulder, while better than gravel, is a dangerous option. Bicyclists would have to cross Oakland Mills Road twice, he said, and parents might have trouble keeping children out of traffic. The supervisors decision leaves the trails association and the City Council pedaling uphill. Schleisman said the two could work together on a grant application next year for construction in 2010.