Plan will provide trails for safe bicycle travel
New Philadelphia resident Mark McKenzie participated in a planning event, attended by more than 30 people and hosted by the City of New Philadelphia, the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition, and Envision, an engineering partner in a bike trail project.
Safe, dedicated bicycle travel may come to New Philadelphia if a plan, introduced Tuesday, Oct. 16 at the Knisely building downtown, comes to fruition in the next few years.
The event, attended by more than 30 people, was hosted by City of New Philadelphia, the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition, and Envision, an engineering partner in planning the project.
“This is the information-gathering phase,” said Daniel Rice, president and CEO of the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition. “This is going to be your plan, and we want you to take ownership of it.”
Rice said no part of the eventual project had yet been designed or formulated. “We need your input, the input of the community, before we do anything else,” he said.
Rice offered an illustration of the types of paths that might be part of any eventual project including riding on sidewalks, designated bike lanes, protected lanes and bike trails. “All of them would be for both biking and walking,” he said.
Rice said trail grant funding, about $8 million, was designated especially for trails in Tuscarawas County. About $90,000 would need to be raised locally.
“But we aren’t here to worry about money tonight,” Rice said. “Those discussions will come. Tonight is all about your vision and what you want to do and accomplish. We are strictly here to listen to you.”
Maps were spread over tables, and attendees were invited to take up markers and draw the paths they thought would be best for various types of trails through the county. There also was a place for writing out wish-list ideas and thoughts for the project.
The whole of the trail project is broken down into three parts: planning, design and construction. Rice said phase one for August and September has been completed.
It began the process of establishing a vision for scheduling public forums, interviewing stakeholders in the project, creating a steering committee, and identifying assets and destinations with which to create trail connections. Assets to be interviewed included Trumpet in the Land, Kent State Tuscarawas, Schoenbrunn Village, Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, the Tuscarawas County Center for the Arts and the Timken Company, along with City of New Philadelphia and the county overall.
Phase two, for October, identifies opportunities and potential connections, reviews existing roadways and cycling conditions and opportunities, and reviews land ownership for possible pathways.
Phase three, for the remainder of 2019, will present draft recommendations based on information gathered in the first two segments, get continuing public feedback and begin to prioritize recommendations.
Rice said further meetings were either scheduled or planned. “But this will not be a lot of meetings and then maps on a shelf. These are relatively easy projects we can implement over the next three years and make them a reality,” he said.
Phase four in January 2020 will begin implementation and cost estimates, lay out a schedule for construction, create a funding strategy, and provide finalized plans.
Audience members asked questions about current land-ownership issues, what kind of use the trails might see, overall project feasibility and the target age group for final accessibility. They were not shy about tracing their thoughts on the maps provided, and the three large tables were surrounded by people with markers and further questions.
Which is just what the meeting organizers wanted to see happening. “The key to all of it is community involvement,” Rice said. “It needs local ownership and participation. This is all an open book at this point, and we can make it whatever the community wants it to be. This sort of thing doesn’t work well if people don’t have a sense of ownership in the process.”