(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors Tuesday awarded a bid to pave the final portion of the Tatanka Ska Trace recreational trail that will connect Spirit Lake and Lake Park. Erin Reed of Dickinson County Trails says they’re very excited to complete that final segment…
“It will complete that trail to Lake Park for a total of 12 miles from the heart of Spirit Lake. We had our bid letting back in July and Cory Juergens Construction was low bidder which the Board of Supervisors awarded. We don’t know what the schedule is just yet but the completion date on the project is July of 2024. Our hope is that we can get done well before that and have people on the trail in early summer.”
The low bid came at a little more than $998,000, below the original estimate of $1.2 million. Most of that is being funded through a federal grant. The 2.5 mile segment that will be paved extends from Montgomery west to where the current paved segment leaves off several miles east of Lake Park.
Reed says the next major project will be a connecting trail with Clay county…
“We’re working, hopefully going to get our project started for next year to do the first segment down to Clay county and that will be a mile and a half. It will start at the south end of the spine trail in south Milford and head west to Highway 71 and go along their right-of-way for a mile and then we’re working on funding for a two mile stretch to continue that south and then the final phase of that would be one mile to connect to Clay county.”
And going back to Tatanka Ska Trace, Reed says an easterly expansion of the trail is still a couple of years off…
“We do have a couple of grants so far through the Transportation Alternative Program and that federal funding comes out four years from when you get the grant awarded. So the first phase of that would come due 2026 so we are working on a plan for working our way that way to the east, and to Highway 71 and Superior.”
She adds they’re in talks right now with a trails group in Osceola county about the possibility of extending the trail west from Lake Park to Harris.
