The Indy Star has more on Gov. Daniels plan to spend $20 million next year (up from $10 million last year apparently) on biking and hiking trails.
I guess I’m surprised that there was $10 million is last year’s budget. I have absolutely no idea what all goes into trail development. Would land acquisition be a major part of the cost?
In any event, this seems to be a positive use of Indiana’s money. Hopefully it will help to combat the fattening of Indiana and potentially strengthen our communities as a public square of sorts if it encourages citizens to talk to one another.
According to a sidebar in the Star’s story:
The plans for biking/hiking trails, drafted Wednesday by some 300 trail advocates from throughout Indiana, will now be honed and prioritized by Department of Natural Resources staffers. The DNR will post the plan on its Web site by June 10. The following week, the DNR will begin holding regional meetings for citizens from across the state to comment.
Update: Thanks to Marty for the link, here is the 2006 Indiana Trails Plan. The plan sets forth the goal of having an easily accessible trail opportunity within 15 minutes or 7.5 miles of all Indiana residents and encouraging partnership of federal, state, local and private resources to build a statewide trail network. Some of the action items include:
- Improving the acquisition process of former railroad corridors;
- Advocating that trails be included in future land use planning, including renegotiation of road right-of-ways and bridge developments;
- Advocating that developers be required to set aside land for trails;
- Educating the public about the health benefits of trail use;
Installing signs that interpret natural, historical, and cultural features of trails.
I wish I could find where to talk to those “300 trail advocates”. I see some great things like the trail that is going from Muncie to Richmond, but I would like to see others in Southern Indiana, like a trail from Bloomington to Columbus, or Seymour to Indy. I think long range rails to trails would be the easiest to convert and give every county a few miles of trails to use.
I’m marking my calendar now for June 17th so I can make sure I’m there to comment.
Wow, they have already put more on the DNR site than I could find there a few months ago. Check out this page for a list of trails:
http://www.in.gov/dnr/outdoor/trails/inventory.htm
As to the question of where the money is going, I wondered that myself until I saw this list. This isn’t just biking and hiking, it is Hiking, Wheelchair, Bicycle, Mountain Bike, Equestrian, Ski, Snowmobile, and Canoe trails. $10M was pretty light for all that.
Land acquisition can be a large part of the cost if the trail doesn’t follow an abandoned railroad. Then it depends if the RR R/W stayed in the public trust after being abandoned or if it reverted to the adjoining land owners. It has gone either way in the past. It largely has to do with how the original grants were written. Frequently the RR only obtained an easement across the land. In the cases where it is returned to the landowners, it is almost impossible to purchase the land. To my knowledge, all of the major farm organizations oppose trail construction on abandoned railways. I never understood why, but they do. When there isn’t a railroad R/W to use, rarely will there be a trail. Acquisition costs are just too high.
Most of the cost is construction. Trails may not be very wide, but when length is considered it is a lot of asphalt. They are also typically LPA projects that use federal money, so INDOT is involved. That usually means over-design and a drawn out process.
I have no idea for agricultural areas, but seems to me that trails near residential areas would enhance their value — not to mention: easy access.
Here’s a link to the 2006 Indiana Trails Plan, it’s pretty informative.
Thanks for the link, Marty!
From the first Chapter:
“The Indiana Trails Vision
To build a statewide trail, greenway and
bikeway system that provides access to a trail
opportunity within 15 minutes of all Indiana
citizens.”
Wonderful! Let’s hope it comes true.
Following up on what Greg said, if there isn’t a RR r/w placed in the public trust, even if untold millions are available, acquisition can be exceptionally difficult should a few property owners choose not to sell.
I also fail to see why farm organizations oppose converting from abandoned rails to trails.
http://www.fb.org/news/nr/nr98/nr1007.html
It never made a bit of sense to me either. In my experiences, farmers always brought up crime as a potential problem.
As far as accomodating them – if they currently had a private crossing over the railroad, a new concrete one was almost always installed.
Funding for new trails has always been a problem. In my experiences, the abandonded r/w has been given to park departments or a trail foundation. They have to come up with a fifth of the money and INDOT, through the feds, provides the other 80%. It is pretty tough to come up with that 20%, especially if you have no revenue.
I’d like to see them funded fully through INDOT, though it isn’t clear that is what the governor is doing.
I remember when Carmelites were trying to prevent the extension of the Monon through their backyard (again, all those criminals out exercising).
BTW, I enjoy horses, but… any trail that allows horses is a SINGLE USE TRAIL in my book. Don’t get me started on trying to hike in our National and State “wilderness” parks over Memorial Day (avoid 3-day weekends as they are horse magnets). The documents Mary linked to are rife with horsey pics.
Oh, and I find this equation amusing:
“accessible trail opportunity within 15 minutes or 7.5 miles of all Indiana residents ”
That would be a 15 minute DRIVE. I bike everywhere, but have to be doing some serious downhill to get it up to 30mph.
Your point about a drive is well taken, but look at our current map of trails. Some areas of Indiana are almost a 2 hour drive from trails. Taking care of people in the more remote areas with something like this would be wonderful, if they actaully do it.
Technically, getting to that goal would mean that it wouldn’t help me locally at all, as Columbus already has enough trails to meet that mark. However, the idea of giving that resource to people in remote counties still makes me excited.
And yes, I agree about the horse thing. If they all would yeld to all other traffic, it would be fine. Yeld horse -> bike -> skates (board or blade) -> runners -> walkers. However, on narrow hiking trails, the horses either don’t have anywhere to go, or you don’t want to be downhill of them when they are trying to trot down a hill. Scary.
Lastly, one thing I really thought was great was the idea of using trail areas for underground utilites. If they would really look into that properlly, then we could FINALLY get things like sewer and high-speed internet to people in “the sticks”. Much of my family lives 15 minutes from Columbus but has dial-up that only gets 26.6k WHEN THE WIND IS RIGHT, usually more like 19.2k. How about that broadband, telcos? You got your free ride in Indiana with those reforms, how about some payback?
Go back to Carmelites today and suggest that the Trail is going to be replaced with a high speed rail, and see if they aren’t all at City Hall with pitchforks and torches. Heck- tell them the trail is going away to be replaced with nothing and they’d revolt. They may have complained about perceived crime possibilities, but they sure like the increase in their property values.