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Councilwoman questions plan for bike path through Riverside

Shirley Reynolds wants to hear from Riverside residents before voting on easements.

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By Cornelius Frolik, Staff Writer 3:06 PM Thursday, February 3, 2011

RIVERSIDE — Although Five Rivers MetroParks is making progress in acquiring the easements it needs to build 3.6 miles of bike trail to extend the Mad River Recreation Trail through Riverside, park officials warn that failure to obtain those rights could kill the $3 million project.

Joseph Zimmerman,  MetroParks project manager, gave this warning to City Council at its meeting late last month after he was questioned about the proposed path of the trail through the city and how it will require some parts of Huberville Avenue to become one way.

City Councilwoman Shirley Reynolds challenged Zimmerman’s claim that the “changes are so minimal that the worst inconvenience will be adding 20 seconds to the drive to leave the plat for some people, not even all of them.”

Reynolds said Zimmerman was understating the inconvenience, and the bike path will more seriously affect the traffic flows in the Riverside Terrace area, and she wants to hear from those residents before voting on granting any easements.

A public input meeting for those residents will be hosted on Feb. 7.

Reynolds asked Zimmerman if MetroParks had a plan B in case the easement requests failed and they had to figure out another route.

“We are on plan C at this point,” he said.

“Redesigning would be an enormous problem of such a magnitude that it could cause the project to be canceled,” Zimmerman said.

The project has been in the works for years, but it stalled after Norfolk Southern Railroad decided not to sell property to MetroParks.

City Council had its first reading of an ordinance to grant MetroParks the 19 easements it needs.

The final vote will not come until after the public input meeting.

MetroParks still has to obtain easements from the U.S. Air Force Base, a hotel owner, the City of Dayton and the railroad, but Zimmerman said he hopes agreements can be reached soon and construction can begin on the trail by summer.

“We are making steady progress and we intend to meet our schedule to begin construction in July,” he said.

The MetroParks board last month approved spending the money necessary to secure the easements.

The design, land acquisition and construction is expected to cost about $3 million.

MetroParks officials are eager to start work on the project because they fear losing out on $ $1.55 million in grant money awarded years ago by the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The funding has been moved into the 2012 fiscal budget, but the state has grown impatient over the years because the money has not been put to use.

Other funding for the project includes $500,000 from the state’s Clean Ohio Trails Fund and $987,000 from MetroParks.

The new portion of bike path would mean that the Mad River Recreation Trail, which runs from Dayton’s RiverScape to Eastwood Metro, would be connected to the bike trail at Huffman Dam in Fairborn.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-0749 or cfrolik@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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