Bike path to create safer, easier travel in Baldwin

The days of using a car to get to class could soon be over for students across Milledgeville. Construction of a bike path that will span approximately nine miles and connect residential areas to Baldwin County schools will begin as early as 2012.

By Dr. Doug Oetter

Construction of a bike path will begin early 2012. The bike path will be built along Fishing Creek and will connect the schools in Baldwin County with the residential areas.

“Our goal is to build this 9.31-mile trail along Fishing Creek,” said Jim Lidstone, director of health and social issues. “The problems with the way our schools are located are these three major roadways: 441 Bypass, Highway 49 and Highway 22, also Blandy Road.”

The proposed bike path will connect the schools in Baldwin County with residential areas. According to Lidstone, this path-along-the-creek option is nice because it will open up an area that people have not seen before and it will allow the bikers to go under the roadways.

The project is a large one; estimated to cost from $4 to $6 million Lidstone states.

“So it’s a big project … (and) an expensive project. We are breaking it up into phases,” Lidstone said.

Phase one will be from the Greenway to the Animal Rescue Foundation; phase two will go from the Animal Rescue Foundation to Central City Park; phase 2B will go from Central City Park to Blandy Road; the final phase will be completing the loop behind Baldwin County schools.

The paths will have a natural packed surface, at least for now, because other options, like concrete or asphalt, are too expensive at this stage of development. A portion of the funding for the paths has already been received.

The Department of Natural Resources has a Recreational Trails Program grant. One hundred thousand dollars is the maximum amount the grant can distribute for a non-motorized trail, but it comes with stipulations.

The RTP is a matching grant—meaning, in this case, that the organization requesting the funding must come up with 25 percent above that in order to get the grant.
“And if you can come up with more than the 25 percent you get extra points in your proposal,” Lidstone said. “We were successful with our first proposal, so we did get a $100,000 grant from the Department of Natural Resources.”

This grant will pay for phase one of the project.

Five hundred thousand dollars have, to date, also been procured from the Georgia Department of Transportation for their Safe Routes to Schools program.
The SRTS program’s website says the benefits for the program are “reduced congestion and increased safety near participating schools, reduced air pollution in route to and near participating schools and increased physical activity to children.”

Georgia College students are looking forward to the paths and think it will make biking more popular.

“It would offer Milledgeville as a mountain bike destination in Middle Georgia,” senior environmental science major Matt Heath said, “and encourage bike use amongst students at GCSU.”

The bike paths are part of the larger initiative called Live Healthy Baldwin.

“Live Healthy Baldwin is a childhood obesity prevention project,” Lidstone said. “We are one of 50 communities from across the country that are being funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation. It’s not your typical kind of educational program.”

It is about making a lasting impact and making it possible for people to get healthier.
There are five focus areas that include: accepting SNAP/WIC benefits at the farmer’s market, creating and fostering community gardens, providing safe routes to school, creating a bicycle friendly community and improving nutrition in the afterschool program.

In addition to getting food stamps accepted at the farmer’s market, the program is looking to provide transportation, so patrons can have access to the fresh produce. Though the food is more expensive at the farmer’s market, Lidstone believes that people will still buy it for the assurance that it is from a local source.

A permit has been obtained from the Department of Agriculture and this will be implemented in the next market year.

Community gardens and school gardens already exist, but more are looking to be created in order to get healthy foods into schools.

“We want to get healthy food into the schools,” Lidstone said. “So, if we can get food grown on school gardens and funnel that into the after-school snack programs. It’s a win-win situation there.”

Georgia College students are involved in helping with the community garden.

The bike paths will help to create safe routes to schools and create a bicycle friendly community.

In order to start construction on the paths, permission must be granted by DNR to change the scope and once that is received, a bid will be put out, and Lidstone’s hope is to start construction in the beginning of 2012.

“We are trying to make Milledgeville a more bicycle/pedestrian friendly community,” Lidstone said.

Posted by Bobbi Otis on Sep 15 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.