(Toledo, OH) Toledo Metroparks is running into some cost overruns on a bike trail project.
The Metroparks board today is expected to approve an extra $130,000 to construct the first phase of the Oak Openings Corridor trail, which will link Secor Metropark along Central Avenue to Wiregrass Lake to the south. A contractor found unsuitable soil to build the trail along the one-and-a-half mile proposed route of the multi-use trail. Because of the soil problems, the contractor got a late start and delayed boardwalk deliveries added to the schedule problems.
Now the project's completion is pushed back to a year from now, when Metroparks officials had hoped to have the project done by Memorial Day. Most of the now 800-thousand dollar project is still being funded by a Clean Ohio Trails Fund.
The Metroparks Toledo board also plan to offer bikers and hikers an entry or stopping point for a new bike trail running north-south in Toledo. The Chessie Circle trail is under construction on former railroad tracks running from the former Teledyne plant in North Toledo all the way to Maumee.
The Metroparks board is expected to approve a $140,000 contract today with a Maumee contractor to build a trailhead, complete with a parking lot and restrooms, which is expected to be complete by the end of next May.
Toledo Metroparks has designs on connecting two Toledo trails. The Metroparks board today is expected to hire a design firm for $270,000 to design a connector trail through Swan Creek Metropark.
The trail is just over a mile long, but will cost ten times the design price, because there will be a need to build bridges and boardwalks to take the trail from the University of Toledo Medical Center to Swan Creek, then to the Chessie Circle Trail which runs south to Maumee.
No local tax dollars will be needed, because the trail is fully-funded by the feds through a $2.7 million traffic mitigation and air quality grant secured by TMACOG.