New bike path nears reality

The dream of a roughly three-mile-long bike path on the outskirts of northwest Mitchell is getting closer to reality.

Late Monday evening, the City Council approved offers on two stretches of land needed for the path. If those deals get done, only one small stretch of land — and the funding to build the path — will be left to acquire.

The proposed path would connect to an existing path at the corner of Pebble Beach Road and 23rd Avenue. From there, it would stretch west to the railroad crossing on 23rd, where it would turn north and mirror the northwesterly path of the railroad tracks all the way to the west end of Lake Mitchell.

“We’ll have contiguous land all the way to the lake,” Tim McGannon, the city’s director of public works, said Tuesday. “There’s only one piece left.”

That one piece is a 450-foot stretch along 23rd Avenue. McGannon said he is negotiating with the owner of that property, CJM Consulting.

Monday evening at City Hall, the City Council approved two offers that McGannon made for other land on the bike-path route.

To the south of Lake Mitchell’s west end, the city is offering Bob Young $25,150 plus an overgrown, 34-acre lot that served as a dumping point when the lake was dredged years ago. In exchange for that city offer, Young has agreed to give the city a strip of land roughly 2,000 feet in length and wide enough for a bike path and any future utilities that are needed in the area.

Along 23rd Avenue, the city is offering $15,470 to United Pentecostal Church for an easement measuring about 400 feet in length.

Much of the rest of the bike-path route was acquired in recent years as part of a storm-sewer project that ran along the railroad tracks.

McGannon said a paved path would cost about $2 million, an amount the city hopes to offset with federal funding. If no such funding is available, McGannon said, the city might consider using a surface similar to the Mickelson Trail in the Black Hills, which consists of crushed limestone and gravel.

The city’s focus on bike paths has been especially sharp in recent years, thanks to the creation of a bike path committee that has proposed and prioritized numerous projects.

It’s unknown when the rural, three-mile path will get built, but two other stretches of bike path are scheduled to be built this summer.

One of those stretches will connect to an existing path at Lakeview Municipal Golf Course. From there, the path will stretch west to Ohlman Street and then north to connect with another existing path at the intersection with Indian Village road. The total length of the new path will be 1,962 feet.

The other stretch will begin at Lake Mitchell’s West End Bridge — where the rural, three-mile path will someday end — and stretch as far north and east around the lake as funding allows. The city has a grant of $500,000 and city funds of about $300,000 for this summer’s two projects.

Also this summer, the city hopes to install a historic bridge that was salvaged from rural Davison County. The structure, for which the city will pay for with a $150,000 grant and about $50,000 in city funds, will be installed over the canal near The Island residential development to serve as a bicycle-and-pedestrian-only bridge.

McGannon said he’s pleased with the progress that has been made with bike paths in Mitchell.

“If we can get this land tied up,” he said, referring to the last stretch needed for the three-mile path, “we have a real promising bike-trail future.”

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