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By Ken McCall, Staff Writer Updated 11:01 PM Sunday, April 18, 2010

From Troy to Xenia to the southern Montgomery County border, orange barrels will mean good news to those who enjoy active transportation.

New projects will be springing up and others will be completed to add significantly to recreation trails and pedestrian amenities in at least 10 communities.

The exact spending is difficult to pin down because some bicycle improvements are included in much bigger projects such as the $22 million Austin Boulevard interchange in southern Montgomery County and the $4 million Dayton-Xenia Road project in Beavercreek.

But total spending of the dozen projects — not including the five projects that are wrapped into larger roadway or park projects — comes to more than $22.4 million.

“It’s pretty exciting,” said Lydia Sowles, park planner for Five Rivers MetroParks. “Dayton has an amazing recreational trail system that other cities would die for.”

One big project for trail users is a $1.9 million project to bridge the last major gap in the Great Miami Recreational Trail. The project, coordinated by Five Rivers MetroParks, will add 2.6 miles of trail from the northern edge of Taylorsville MetroPark at the northern Montgomery County border up to Kyle Park in Tipp City.

With that link, the trail will run continuously — except for temporary closures for bridge and I-75 construction — from Troy down into Butler County.

Another significant missing trail link will be filled in by the city of Xenia this summer, when it builds a 3-mile, $970,000 section from downtown at Washington Street out to the Jamestown Connector at Bickett Road. In addition, engineering for a tunnel for the trail under U.S. 35 is almost complete, said Nimfa Simpson, Xenia city planner.

The project will complete a connection to the fourth regional trail through the city, Simpson said, along with the Little Miami Trail, the Ohio-Erie Trail and the Creekside Trail.

The city also just finished bike and pedestrian improvements downtown on Detroit Street, as well as a 3,000-foot connector to Creekside Trail along Towler Road from a neighborhood in western Xenia.

“The city continues to improve its bicycle and pedestrian facilities with an eye towards acquiring a bicycle friendly designation,” from the League of American Bicyclists, Simpson said.

Beavercreek also will be active this year. The city has four new construction projects on the books as well as a resurfacing project for a section of the Creekside Trail.

As part of the Dayton-Xenia Road project, the city is adding more than a mile of trail along that road and then south on Grange Hall Road to the Creekside Trail, said Jeff Moorman, Beavercreek city engineer. The city also is constructing another 1,600 feet south from the trail down to Research Boulevard.

And then, it’s building its own Beavercreek Station on the Creekside Trail at North Fairfield Road, that will include public restrooms and a new parking lot.

“It’s like a park-and-ride facility,” Moorman said. “It allows people to access the bike trail and the restrooms.”

Some of the projects also are built just for pedestrians. Oakwood and Clayton, for example, are beginning work totalling more than $540,000 on curb ramps at various intersections to make them handicapped accessible.

In additon, Kettering, which just finished a bike route and path along the Iron Horse Trail north to Stroop Road, will begin construction on the first phase of a multiyear project to improve pedestrian access and safety to the business district in and around the Town & Country Shopping Center.

Beginning this fall, the $389,000 project will install street lighting along Stroop Road from Overland Trail to Far Hills Boulevard and will install decorative sidewalk along one block just west of Far Hills.

Plans include more street lighting, up to 12-foot sidewalks and decorative pavement along East Stroop Road past the Eichelberger Shopping Center, said Joe Roller, project manager for the city’s engineering department.

“The idea is to try to increase the prestige of being a pedestrian in that area,” Roller said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@Dayton

DailyNews.com

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