Possible trail along Hoyt Rd. hill gaining momentum

HARBOR, Inc. brings focus through ‘Safe Routes to School’ initiative

By Kate Bassett
Harbor Light Newspaper

In an age where childhood obesity is sky-rocketing and nature deficit disorder is creating a huge buzz about the need to simply get young people outdoors, simple acts like walking to and from school fit perfectly within the mission many pediatricians, teachers, and parents are taking on: promoting healthy lifestyle choices.

For children who live on or near the Hoyt Road hill between Quick and Lake Streets, however, the idea of walking to school brings nightmarish images —in the form of whizzing cars and dangerously narrow shoulders— and a consensus that the section of road is simply not safe for pedestrian travel.

However, thanks to the on-going work of HARBOR Inc., the area’s nonprofit visioning group, people may one day travel by foot or pedal safely along the Hoyt Road corridor.

While this portion of Hoyt Road is relatively short, it falls under the jurisdiction of three different municipalities: the City of Harbor Springs, Little Traverse Township and West Traverse Township. All three have agreed to set aside funds in 2010 for reconstruction of the road. In an attempt to coordinate efforts (and thereby reduce costs), HARBOR Inc. is working with the federally funded Safe Routes to School program to put a path along the side of the road at the same time.

“The Safe Routes to Schools program is a national movement that was originally funded a few years ago by the federal government as part of a transportation bill,” said Danna Widmar, executive director for HARBOR Inc. “The program is intended to address the following issues: education about active lifestyle choices; enforcement of any areas identified by law enforcement, engineering (and ultimately construction) of necessary routes, and encouragement about restoring a walking rather than driving society.”

Widmar said HARBOR Inc. began working with the program in 2007. It requires a five-step process and offers funding for a route to school in return, Widmar said.

“The formal program requires participants to undertake a series of steps. There has to be a committee with certain required participants (law enforcement, teachers, etc.), and work must be done to conduct school surveys of children, parents and within the classroom, conduct walking audits and school property assessments and lastly, develop a written action plan (according to their guidelines).”

“This is much like a formal planning process with the action plan being the final piece,” Widmar added. “A community is not allowed to apply for funding without having completed the Action Plan.”

HARBOR Inc. began examining the best route for a possible trail connecting the residents on the outskirts of Harbor Springs to the city itself. In doing so, Widmar said local planner Emily Meyerson was hired to do a study to determine if, in fact, Hoyt Road was the most useful path to pursue.

“While waiting for the Safe Routes to School survey results we hired Emily Meyerson to study several routes in an effort to accommodate the needs of all the property owners and soccer users in the vicinity of Hoyt and Quick.

“I thought her study made a few interesting findings, namely: Hoyt Road is not safe, yet there are a lot of residential properties at the opposite end of it that use it to get into town, regardless of it’s current conditions. The second interesting finding was that most people are overlooking the use that will occur in the other direction, meaning that the south end of Hoyt has the ball fields, the school track, the football field, downtown, etc. and is the current terminus point of the Little Traverse Wheelway M-119 connection that we’ve been working on.”

Widmar said that tying all of these things together made Meyerson’s answer very clear.

“She indicated that it wasn’t until she had studied all of the connection options in detail that she realized the magnitude of how important this connection could be to the community (not just the Hoyt/Quick residents). She recommended the west side of the road.”

Al Dika, Mayor of Harbor Springs and a member of the HARBOR Inc. board, said the results of the study made him see the benefit of a Hoyt Road trail, but said he thinks it needs to be built with green space easements.

“I’m all for a trail separate from the roadway on the west side of Hoyt. I don’t think five-and-a-half-foot shoulders would make that road any safer for non-motorized transportation, but the wide shoulders probably would increase the rate of travel of the motorized vehicles, making the road less safe for pedestrians,” Dika said.

He added that the HARBOR Inc. executive board walked the potential route last fall, and barring any issues with acquiring easements for the trail, it seems like a viable option.

The biggest issue in getting the trail off the road would likely be along the steep hill just before Lake Street. On the west side, the Walstrom storage property sits, and Dika said the Walstroms’ have told HARBOR Inc. that they will help get the trail past or through their property.

While Dika has a vision for the trail, he noted both Little Traverse and West Traverse Townships need to be on board with the project.

“I won’t interfere with the townships in their decisions about how to build that road and maybe a trail, too. But if they are interested in building the trail I describe, I’ll do all I can to get the City to cooperate and participate,” Dika said.

For Widmar’s part in the process, she said she is focusing on moving ahead with securing any possible Safe Routes to School program dollars she can.

Although the original federal program offered 100-percent funding for trail projects, Widmar said so many schools jumped on the that the state became almost instantly backlogged.

“We didn’t get our survey results until the following spring and then all funding was expended by September 2008.”

Still, there is a possibility of more federal dollars being reallocated to the Safe Routes program. To encourage communities to finish their action plans, the State of Michigan is offering is mini-grants. Widmar said she anticipates any new federal funds will have a 20-50-percent local match requirement.

Current trail construction estimates, including construction documents, are hovering around $310,000. Widmar said she is hopeful that if “problem areas” along the trail—like the severe grades in several spots—are adequately addressed by the design, it may provide a lower construction estimate.

The push for this program was reinvigorated, she added, by a sense of urgency and passion for the potential trail that was strongly felt at a recent HARBOR Inc. board meeting.

“I have suggested that the Safe Routes to School continues to be our best bet for getting funding, despite the uncertainty of even that source,” Widmar said. “The problem with that is we have to be ready to go in two ways: we have to complete the action plan and we need to be coordinated with efforts to repave Hoyt in 2010.”

While there is no funding for the project as of now, Widmar said construction documents were completed last December in order to keep the project in a forward motion. Some HARBOR Inc board members discussed the possibility of raising the funds—in case federal dollars are not allocated to the program—during the recent board meeting.

As a result, several community members have stepped forward with pledges of $1,000 to jumpstart any possible campaigns.

Audrey Mooradian made one such donation. Although Mooradian, a long-time seasonal resident of the area, does not live along Hoyt Road, she said there is an obvious need for a safe route to the schools, the soccer fields (on the corner of Quick and Hoyt Roads) and into downtown.

“This is about the children of our community,” Mooradian said. “It is something we all need to support.”

Widmar said “a lot of people” are working to finish the action plan. She said the construction documents for both the road reconstruction and the trail would likely need to be finalized by December 2009.

Anyone interested in helping with the Hoyt Road Safe Routes to School project is encouraged to contact Widmar at HARBOR Inc. (231) 526-5060.

This is part of the March 25, 2009 online edition of Harbor Light Newspaper.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.