(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a resolution for phase two of a project to connect the county’s trails system with one coming out of Clay county. Erin Reed of Dickinson County Trails told the supervisors the funding would come from at least a couple of different sources…
“This will run two miles from starting from the end point of phase one at A-48 or 240th Street and go south two miles to A-43. That will actually connect sort of into our existing bike route system so it’s a good ending point. And then we’ll have one mile to finish and make the completion with Clay county. We already have TAP funding for that, $272,000, and the State Rec Trails Grant is coming up due July 1st and that’s where we’re going to tap into and apply for that funding for this project.”
She says that would be in addition to some REAP funding they plan to apply for. Reed adds the Trails Board continues to have extensive discussions with the Iowa Department of Transportation over the route of the trail extending just south of Milford…
“With my discussions with them they basically said that you know, it’s not ideal at the moment but we’re going to work with you to make it better and we’re working with Milford for a potential connection on the west side going north into downtown. They’re very interested in connecting from sixth street going south. This provides in our discussions with the Trail Board, which we’ve had a lot of them, and this provides for a lot of opportunity as far as additional connections going north toward downtown. There’s probably going to be some changes to Highway 71 going through town, and so, you know, what the future holds there is unknown but hopefully improvements to bicycle and pedestrian friendliness in that downtown, because it’s a really nice downtown there.”
Reed adds the county’s plans to eventually pave 230th Street on the west side of Highway 71 south of Milford would also be beneficial to their plans.
