Hike And Bike Trails In League City

[Urbannizer]

City expanding trail system

By Rhiannon Meyers

The Daily News Published September 29, 2009

LEAGUE CITY — As work begins on what officials call the area’s “most ambitious hike and bike trails project,” residents are asking for a system that is friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists.

League City is in the beginning stages of a plan to build 137 miles of hike and bike trails that would connect the east and west sides of a city divided by Interstate 45. The proposal to expand the city’s trail system from 10 miles to 147 miles is the most ambitious of its kind in the Galveston County region, Councilman Neil Baron said.

At a series of public meetings in September, residents asked the city to consider using the trails to stitch together the bedroom community’s patchwork of neighborhoods and parks that, in many places, lack sidewalks. Many residents said they don’t feel safe walking or riding bikes in the city.

“This is the worst city in the county to be training in,” Mike Robertson, a League City resident and cyclist, said. “When the safest place to ride in the county is on the feeder road, you have a problem.”

Consultant Clark Condon Associates plans to use the comments gathered from residents at the public meetings to design the trail system.

The consultants will recommend:

• Where to lay the trails. Residents said they wanted trails that connected parks, the library and schools. Where possible, residents wanted trails that were separated from busy streets, they said.

• How wide the trails should be. The trails could be as narrow as 6 feet and as wide as 10 feet.

• The type of trail surface. Residents suggested the city consider different surfaces for different areas of town. Many residents said they favored soft surfaces, including crushed granite and asphalt.

• The types of amenities offered along the trails, including benches, exercise equipment, water fountains, bird watching stations and educational markers.

The city already has run into problems trying to develop an interconnected system.

***

Some of the proposed trails in the city’s plan — including bike lanes on the FM 270 bridge over Clear Creek — already have been funded by the Texas Department of Transportation or Galveston County.

The city plans to pay for other trails using sales tax revenue specifically set aside to promote amateur athletics.

The consultants will present a draft of the plan at three meetings in November.

The final plan should be finished by January.

http://www.galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=a4b15c4d6a7182b0

[kdog08]

Hope it works out for League City.