Communities continue work on biking trails

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For the past several years, Americans have been increasingly health-conscious, and there is growing interest in bicycling and walking as part of a healthy lifestyle. For that reason, lawmakers have been increasingly amenable to the prospect of including hiking and biking trails in public policy. The U.S. Department of Transportation drafted a response to the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which requires biking and hiking trails to be included in all transportation projects unless exceptional circumstances exist. As evidence of the increased interest in Iowa trails,the Iowa DOT and the Iowa Bicycle Coalition recently sponsored the “2008 Iowa Bicycle Summit” to help city administrators, engineers, bicycle advocates and others address the many issues involved in bicycle trail development, including safety, design and maintenance. Jasper County Engineer Jim Christensen attended sessions of the Bicycle Summit and has designed the Monroe to Prairie City trail and another trail near Lynnville. “I tried to keep it simple,” Christensen said of the five-mile route from Monroe. “For the design I used the Chichaqua Valley Trail as sample plans.” Jasper County obtained the abandoned railroad bed from Iowa Interstate Railroad several years ago, but the idea of turning the railroad into a trail had not been developed. The county now owns the potential trail from Monroe to approximately two miles east of Prairie City, near county road F62, also known as the Diamond Trail Road. Iowa Interstate has been reluctant to sell the remainder of the line, because of its need for storage space for rail cars utilized by the Prairie City Cooperative Exchange. The county’s trail project was given to the Jasper County Conservation Board for development, and Kari Van Zante, director of the Conservation Board, said she is in the process of obtaining funding for the project. She recently presented the county’s grant proposal to the Central Iowa Regional Transportation Planning Alliance (CIRTPA). Another hurdle the county needs to clear is permission from the Iowa Department of Transportation to build that portion of the trail west from the F62 interchange into Prairie City in the right-of-way of the former Highway 163. If and when the Monroe-Prairie City trail is constructed and opened to hiking and biking, it would be another strand in an ever-widening web of connecting bike trails throughout the state. The cities of Prairie City and Monroe are both working on recreational complexes, and Prairie City has just finished a trail through town. A trail to Monroe could eventually hook in with the Volksweg Trail surrounding Lake Red Rock, providing access to Pella as well. The Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge also is working on funding for a trail from the refuge north to connect with Prairie City. Nancy Gilbertson, refuge manager for Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, said she has been working for several years to create a bicycle trail parallel to the refuge’s entrance road from Prairie City. Gilbertson has applied for a federal grant through the Alternative Transportation in Parks and Public Lands program, administered by the Federal Transit Administration. Looking further into the future, Prairie City’s trail could eventually connect with the Des Moines trail system, which would then make bicycle access to Saylorville Lake and many other nearby trails possible. Someday, perhaps, cyclists could travel from Red Rock to the Saylorville Dam without ever encountering motorized traffic.