Winona Greenway Expansion to Open in Spring
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
“It’s not officially open yet, but I think a lot of people have questions about what’s going on and people are actually out there,” Town Coordinator Craig Allebach said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “We’re anticipating that it will unofficially be open probably around April. We can open it up to the public and INDOT will release it maybe around then. And probably have a grand opening, ribbon-cutting the weekend of the Bike Festival, which is the weekend of May 20.”
A lot of activities are planned for that whole weekend, he said, including the official opening ceremony for the new greenway extension.
“In addition, I think we’ll probably also be doing something on a more official scale on Warsaw’s side on Market Street where they put the trail along between Bronson and Argonne Road. So we’ll probably be doing a dual thing,” Allebach said.
The newest addition to Winona Lake’s greenway starts at the existing greenway near Boys City Drive, crossing Wyland Ditch with a boardwalk about 162 feet. Where the boardwalk ends begins a paved portion, making a giant curve to the west before going back east to Pierceton Road.
At the crossing with Pierceton Road to Miller Field is a crosswalk with a solar-powered flashing yellow light pedestrians can turn on to cross the road. The signalization is already up, but Allebach said the crosswalk still needs to be marked.
The greenway crosses to Miller Field, going around that, along and back through the woods. It then goes parallel to Robson Road, terminating at Beta Hall on the Grace College campus.
“In addition, there’s a little extension off of this that goes down to Miller Field and there’s some parking places down here,” Allebach said. The extension is parallel to Pierceton Road going east.
He said they were creating different parking lots to help alleviate greenway parking. The parking spaces and the extension all have been surfaced, and just the crosswalks need to be finished.
“That’s about a mile long,” Allebach said of the new greenway extension.
Work on it began back in May, but there was trouble with some bad soils. It was put on hold for about four months until “we figured out what the fix was,” Allebach said.
Around Sept. 1, Allebach said the work got going again.
“They were actually able to get more completed than I thought they would,” he said.
Allebach said after getting the new greenway extension started, “In addition, after we kind of did this, we also went to K21 trying to get some funding to close up the loop.”
The newest extension terminates at Beta Hall, but to close up the loop, a sidewalk would be put in starting at Beta Hall and continuing parallel to Mission Drive to Kings Highway. There already is a sidewalk there at Kings Highway to where it becomes Pierceton Road at the intersection with Freedom Lane. The rest of the loop would go from Freedom Lane along Pierceton Road back to Miller Field.
He said they’d like to close up the loop by “next April or so.”
Once the new extension is open and the loop is closed, Allebach estimated the total length will be over 1.2 miles. The original trail “from the light to Roy Street is 1.89 miles” and is called the Heritage Trail.
The greenway trail has been in the works for at least seven years. The project was authorized by the Indiana Department of Transportation to start Dec. 16, 2008, according to information provided by Allebach. The current cost estimate of the entire greenway project is $1,170,804.90, with $756,200 coming from federal dollars and $390,492 in local matching funds.
There is some additional costs to project of about $131,000 because of the bad soils, but that’s not been finalized yet.
“The goal, of course, is to improve the health and fitness of the community, and also to provide connection,” Allebach said. “One of our goals as a community has been to try and connect various parts of the community where if a person is on a bicycle or they’re walking or running, they can be off the road and travel anywhere in the city.”
Winona Lake has the extension to South Town with one trail, and the newest trail connecting to Grace College. Allebach said for its next leg the town would like to connect the trail to Lakeland Christian Academy on CR 250.
“Between that and a combination of sidewalks in the community, basically it keeps everyone off the street for bicycling, walking and running as best we can,” he said.[[In-content Ad]]
“It’s not officially open yet, but I think a lot of people have questions about what’s going on and people are actually out there,” Town Coordinator Craig Allebach said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “We’re anticipating that it will unofficially be open probably around April. We can open it up to the public and INDOT will release it maybe around then. And probably have a grand opening, ribbon-cutting the weekend of the Bike Festival, which is the weekend of May 20.”
A lot of activities are planned for that whole weekend, he said, including the official opening ceremony for the new greenway extension.
“In addition, I think we’ll probably also be doing something on a more official scale on Warsaw’s side on Market Street where they put the trail along between Bronson and Argonne Road. So we’ll probably be doing a dual thing,” Allebach said.
The newest addition to Winona Lake’s greenway starts at the existing greenway near Boys City Drive, crossing Wyland Ditch with a boardwalk about 162 feet. Where the boardwalk ends begins a paved portion, making a giant curve to the west before going back east to Pierceton Road.
At the crossing with Pierceton Road to Miller Field is a crosswalk with a solar-powered flashing yellow light pedestrians can turn on to cross the road. The signalization is already up, but Allebach said the crosswalk still needs to be marked.
The greenway crosses to Miller Field, going around that, along and back through the woods. It then goes parallel to Robson Road, terminating at Beta Hall on the Grace College campus.
“In addition, there’s a little extension off of this that goes down to Miller Field and there’s some parking places down here,” Allebach said. The extension is parallel to Pierceton Road going east.
He said they were creating different parking lots to help alleviate greenway parking. The parking spaces and the extension all have been surfaced, and just the crosswalks need to be finished.
“That’s about a mile long,” Allebach said of the new greenway extension.
Work on it began back in May, but there was trouble with some bad soils. It was put on hold for about four months until “we figured out what the fix was,” Allebach said.
Around Sept. 1, Allebach said the work got going again.
“They were actually able to get more completed than I thought they would,” he said.
Allebach said after getting the new greenway extension started, “In addition, after we kind of did this, we also went to K21 trying to get some funding to close up the loop.”
The newest extension terminates at Beta Hall, but to close up the loop, a sidewalk would be put in starting at Beta Hall and continuing parallel to Mission Drive to Kings Highway. There already is a sidewalk there at Kings Highway to where it becomes Pierceton Road at the intersection with Freedom Lane. The rest of the loop would go from Freedom Lane along Pierceton Road back to Miller Field.
He said they’d like to close up the loop by “next April or so.”
Once the new extension is open and the loop is closed, Allebach estimated the total length will be over 1.2 miles. The original trail “from the light to Roy Street is 1.89 miles” and is called the Heritage Trail.
The greenway trail has been in the works for at least seven years. The project was authorized by the Indiana Department of Transportation to start Dec. 16, 2008, according to information provided by Allebach. The current cost estimate of the entire greenway project is $1,170,804.90, with $756,200 coming from federal dollars and $390,492 in local matching funds.
There is some additional costs to project of about $131,000 because of the bad soils, but that’s not been finalized yet.
“The goal, of course, is to improve the health and fitness of the community, and also to provide connection,” Allebach said. “One of our goals as a community has been to try and connect various parts of the community where if a person is on a bicycle or they’re walking or running, they can be off the road and travel anywhere in the city.”
Winona Lake has the extension to South Town with one trail, and the newest trail connecting to Grace College. Allebach said for its next leg the town would like to connect the trail to Lakeland Christian Academy on CR 250.
“Between that and a combination of sidewalks in the community, basically it keeps everyone off the street for bicycling, walking and running as best we can,” he said.[[In-content Ad]]
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