Monday, June 05, 2000
Funding sought for addition to trail
By Anna Guido
Enquirer Contributor
LIBERTY TWP. — Proponents of a community hike and bike trail will ask township trustees today to approve an application for state funding to help pay for an additional one-mile section of paved trail.
Trustees have to approve this because they would have to provide 20 percent of the $204,250 construction cost plus engineering costs, said Chris Matacic, a member of the parks subcommittee ap plying for the grant.
No funds are designated for parks and recreation in the township, so trustees would have to agree to go into the general fund.
The new section would be east of Lesourdsville-West Chester Road in south-central Liberty Township, just north of Hamilton Mason Road, south of the Michael A. Fox Highway.
The application deadline for the transportation enhancement funds at the Ohio Department of Transportation is June 15.
“There is a lot of need for these kinds of projects and we usually get more applications than there is funding to give out,” said Hans Jindal, a planning and environmental engineer with ODOT's District 8 office in Lebanon.
Last year, ODOT received 118 requests totaling $44 million, Mr. Jindal said, and 33 applicants received grants totaling $5 million.
Mrs. Matacic said she expects an answer from ODOT by the end of summer. If the grant is awarded, work could begin next spring.
Trustee Dave Kern said he plans to vote “yes” and he also supports “the long-term goal of connecting our system with the Great Miami system, which in turn will connect with the Little Miami system.”
Liberty Township has a two-mile trail from Fort Liberty Playland in The Reserves Park on Van Gordon Road through The Wetlands Park to Lesourdsville-West Chester Road.
However, there will be a 2,000-foot gap between that and the proposed new mile. Planners have to resolve a space problem: There is too little space between the Fox highway and Greenbriar subdivision.
Mrs. Matacic said conversations are just beginning on how to resolve the problem.
Liberty is among more than 20 townships, municipalities, counties and park districts in the Tristate creating a hike and bike trail.
It's not a new idea. In 1976, the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments prepared a bikeway policy to encourage cycling as an alternative to driving.
The regional hike and bike trail system could eventually extend from Northern Kentucky through downtown Cincinnati and connect to expanding Ohio and national networks.
Liberty Township officials said it could be 20 years before they complete their part of the regional hike/bike trail system and connect to growing Great Miami and Little Miami trails.
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