There is some great news in the Spinal Column about Wixom officially joining Commere Township and Walled Lake to purchase a portion of the Coe railroad.

As we’ve reported prior, this would connect the Huron Valley Trail with the West Bloomfield Trail (and their planned extension), while creating 8 miles new miles rail-trail.

The communities have formally created a trailways alliance called the Commerce, Walled Lake and Wixom Trailway Management Council. Each municipality appointed one voting member to act in its best interests. Wixom City Manager Mike Dornan will represent Wixom, with Assistant City Manager Tony Nowicki serving as an alternate.

According to Nowicki, the formation of the trailway council is the first step toward acquiring railroad corridor property that spans from Haggerty Road to the western city limits of Wixom. That stretch is considered part of a missing link in a cross-county trail traversing the county limits and connecting into a cross-state corridor connecting one side of the state to the other.

“The council’s powers are limited to the acquisition and maintenance (of the rail corridor land), and for the purchase of railway right of way,” Nowicki said. “It doesn’t have the authority to levy any type of taxes.

Nowicki is currently preparing grant applications to seek funding to acquire the rail corridor.

Read the entire article

Tags: Commerce Township, Huron Valley Trail, Michigan Airline, Walled Lake, West Bloomfield Trail, Wixom

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.