The Huron Valley Trail provides a connection between South Lyon to Wixom. People use the trail because it’s away from cars, it’s green and just a great place to get away.

Lyon Township is trying to change that.

They want to re-route the rail-trail just south of I-96 and east of Milford Road. Rather than run straight through some greenspace, they want to increase their sprawl and build a big ring road.

Under the latest plan, the trail would be routed along this busy ring road. They also want to allow active driveways across the trail, which means it would no longer meet AASHTO guidelines — something that is required by township ordinance.

The DNR is saying “no”. They own the trail property. It was purchased and developed with taxpayer dollars as a recreational facility. They are defending this public investment and rightly so.

Another defender is Fred Dore, long time supporter and rider of this trail. He’s leading the grassroots effort to protect the trail from “being besieged by commercial development interests that may forever damage its utility, safety and natural beauty.”

He’s urging trail users to contact the DNR and Lyon Township officials to prevent this damaging trail reroute.

Link: Fred Dore’s letter to the DNR Director

The sad part about this is Lyon Township officials are claiming this is preventing growth. Southeast Michigan is not growing. Lyon Township is only getting larger because some other community is shrinking.

This is just another example of how the lack of regional planning hurts Metro Detroit’s long term economic health.

It’s just sprawl. And it’s certainly no justification for damaging our public investment in trails.

At Monday’s City Commission meeting, our Bicycle Task Force recommended the City allocate $40K to hire a firm to develop a non-motorized transportation master plan for the city.

Interim city manager Don Johnson has budgeted that expenditure using stimulus funding from Energy Block Grants. The city has received $543,400 in such funding.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the purpose of these block grants are to:

• reduce fossil fuel emissions in a manner that is environmentally sustainable and, to the maximum extent practicable, maximizes benefits for local and regional communities;
• reduce the total energy use of the eligible entities; and
• improve energy efficiency in the building sector, the transportation sector, and other appropriate sectors.

The DOE notes the following activities are eligible for funding:

• Development of infrastructure such as bike lanes and pathways and pedestrian walkways;
• State/locals/regional integrated planning activities (i.e. transportation, housing, environmental, energy, land use) with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled;

So, it’s clearly appropriate for Royal Oak to allocate a portion of these funds to plan for improved biking and walking within the city.

Thanks to the City Commission and staff for allowing this to move forward.

Also, during Monday’s meeting Commissioner Carlo Ginotti moved that this project continue to move forward. It was passed unanimously.

At tonight’s Royal Oak City Commission meeting, city staff will recommend funding for a non-motorized transportation plan in the upcoming budget.

This is great news.

While everyone’s welcomed to provide public comment at tonight’s meeting, at this point it’s really not necessary — especially given the lengthy meeting agenda, the wintry weather, and some basketball game.

We will be sure to attend and provide an updates from the meeting.

Both the Detroit News and The Mirror have articles about tonight’s meeting.

Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press is reporting on Macomb County’s ambitious plans for a non-motorized trail which would encircle the county. The resulting trail would be 70 miles long and completed in 2011.

An ambitious $8.5-million project is under way to connect several existing hike-bike trails into a giant, continuous loop that officials say will stretch from central to northern Macomb County and — hopefully — attract hikers, cyclers, runners and joggers from across the region.

The plans call for the loop to connect the Macomb Orchard Trail in the northern section of the county, south to the Stony Creek Metro Park Trail, east to the Metro Beach Trail, through Mt. Clemens, and then back up to the Macomb Orchard Trail.

This trail loop could connect to Detroit through a much-discussed connection to the Conner Creek Greenway. It could also connect to Madison Heights using a trail along the Red Run.

Link: Macomb County Trailways Master Plan

While this news is welcomed, we certainly would like to see equal effort put towards making Macomb County roads more bike-friendly.

And as we noted earlier the Road Commission for Macomb County is uninformed and unwilling to implement safe cycling on their roads. That simply needs to change if Macomb County hopes to remain competitive with respect to creating liveable communities.

The Bagley pedestrian and bike bridge in Mexicantown is still under construction, but it’s coming along well since we last reported on it in February.

One can see in the photo to the right that the suspension cables are now being strung.

No one I’ve spoken with knows when it will be completed. The entire Gateway Project is 80% complete with and should be done by September.

There was a rumor that this bridge would be open by Cinco de Mayo, but given its current state, that looks doubtful.

The Detroit News recently ran an article on this bridge. They also made a very interesting video as well.