Michigan increases funding for new bike trails.
06-09-08, 04:25 AM
#1
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Michigan increases funding for new bike trails.
Detroit constantly gets dissed as the least cycling friendly city in the US. Michigan's Rails to Trails record says otherwise.
***
A few years ago, Ron Helveston cycled for miles in downtown Detroit through a subterranean gulch of weeds, graffiti, trash and old tiresThe Detroiter, an avid cyclist for decades, is itching to ride there again. He'll likely get his wish in August.
That's when the gulch -- called the Dequindre Cut -- is scheduled to open as a 1.5-mile landscaped, traffic-free trail between the Detroit River and Eastern Market for walkers, joggers, in-line skaters and cyclists like Helveston.
It's among the 25 miles or so of new trails to be added this year and next in a dozen suburban communities, at sites from Romeo to Milford, and Pontiac to Dearborn. Trail bridges and signage also are slated.
Michiganders still call Detroit the Motor City, yet their state also is a leader in paths for nonmotorized transit. Michigan is second only to Wisconsin in rail trails, the routes on old rail lines, according to the national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in Washington, D.C. Michigan has 1,491 rail-trail miles compared with Wisconsin's 1,552 miles, the group says.
*** ***
"That's really going to open up our whole network" of Macomb County trails, Crumm said.
Also bridging a barrier -- a county line -- is a 1.3-mile trail that the City of South Lyon in southwest Oakland County expects to start building in late summer. It will head south and east to the Salem-South Lyon District Library in Washtenaw County, said Oakland County Commissioner Jeff Potter, R-South Lyon.
"Our hope is that this will be the first step to connecting Oakland County's network to Ann Arbor," Potter said.
On Detroit's west side, the Southwest Detroit Business Association spent a decade planning the 5-mile Southwest Detroit Greenway, and last month it put final touches -- new trees, flowers and signs -- on its first 2 miles, said Kathy Wendler, president of the group
https://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...WS05/806090362
***
A few years ago, Ron Helveston cycled for miles in downtown Detroit through a subterranean gulch of weeds, graffiti, trash and old tiresThe Detroiter, an avid cyclist for decades, is itching to ride there again. He'll likely get his wish in August.
That's when the gulch -- called the Dequindre Cut -- is scheduled to open as a 1.5-mile landscaped, traffic-free trail between the Detroit River and Eastern Market for walkers, joggers, in-line skaters and cyclists like Helveston.
It's among the 25 miles or so of new trails to be added this year and next in a dozen suburban communities, at sites from Romeo to Milford, and Pontiac to Dearborn. Trail bridges and signage also are slated.
Michiganders still call Detroit the Motor City, yet their state also is a leader in paths for nonmotorized transit. Michigan is second only to Wisconsin in rail trails, the routes on old rail lines, according to the national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in Washington, D.C. Michigan has 1,491 rail-trail miles compared with Wisconsin's 1,552 miles, the group says.
*** ***
"That's really going to open up our whole network" of Macomb County trails, Crumm said.
Also bridging a barrier -- a county line -- is a 1.3-mile trail that the City of South Lyon in southwest Oakland County expects to start building in late summer. It will head south and east to the Salem-South Lyon District Library in Washtenaw County, said Oakland County Commissioner Jeff Potter, R-South Lyon.
"Our hope is that this will be the first step to connecting Oakland County's network to Ann Arbor," Potter said.
On Detroit's west side, the Southwest Detroit Business Association spent a decade planning the 5-mile Southwest Detroit Greenway, and last month it put final touches -- new trees, flowers and signs -- on its first 2 miles, said Kathy Wendler, president of the group
https://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...WS05/806090362
__________________
Pray for the Dead and Fight like Hell for the Living
^ Since January 1, 2012
Pray for the Dead and Fight like Hell for the Living
^ Since January 1, 2012
