DaytonDailyNews.com

The first draft of a document that could dramatically improve recreational opportunities for residents and enhance the region's reputation for a great quality of life was released this week.

The first regionwide bikeways plan in 30 years includes a comprehensive inventory of bike facilities, programs, organizations, funding opportunities and safety problems for Montgomery, Miami, Greene and northern Warren counties.

The 239-page Comprehensive Local-Regional Bikeways Plan also includes specific recommendations, project design guidelines, maps and photos for 18 top-priority projects.

The document, written by Alta Planning + Design, a nationally recognized alternative transportation consulting company, along with the Columbus-based Burgess and Niple, lays out a 20-year plan to not only add to the existing system of bicycle-pedestrian paths in the region, but also to create programs and incentives to get people out of their cars and using "healthy and active" forms of travel, such as walking and bicycling.

The study notes that federal transportation policy is now aimed at constructing "complete streets" that are designed for walkers and cyclists as well as automobiles.

The bulk of the study, though, centers around how to build on what we have — mostly a system of multi-use trails along river corridors and abandoned railroad lines — and what needs to be built to connect every area with safe, attractive spaces to bicycle.

The consultants and a local committee gathered about 800 suggestions from the public, winnowed them down through a complex selection process to the "high priority" 100 and then to the "top priority" 18.

Those 18 projects — and I've got to say they all look pretty cool — would add 93 miles of new bikeways to the region at an estimated cost of $24 million. All 100 of the top 100 projects would add 360 miles of bikeways at a cost of $100 million.

The plan also identified more than $170 million the region can get in the next 10 years from federal, state and local sources. It estimates the region's jurisdictions could receive as much as $75 million for on-street bicycle facilities, $79 million for shared-use paths and about $1.2 million for education and encouragement programs.

That's where the counties, cities and townships will have to step up, said Matt Lindsay, manager of environmental planning for the MVRPC.

"All of those various grants require a local match," said Lindsay, who is overseeing the plan's development.

"So there needs to be jurisdictions that want to put up their

20 percent or so. But it's a

20-year plan."

Three public meetings are scheduled next week to roll out the draft plan:

• 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in Troy City Hall, 100 S. Market St.

• 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Fairborn Senior Center, 325 N. Third St.

• 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in the MVRPC Center for Regional Cooperation, 1100 W. Third St. in Dayton.

The draft plan can be downloaded at www.altaplanning.com/mvrpc. Lindsay said he welcomes comments "from all comers."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.