By Jim Wing, LCTA President

The floods of June 4^th provided an opportunity to see Nature on the rampage. It was truly amazing to go down to Rosedale Road that afternoon and watch what looked like the Cedar River blasting everything in its path. Indian Creek was really, really out of control.

Upstream on Cottage Grove Parkway, the family of the son of two of our board mem-bers, Ed and Sandy Colton, was rescued off the roof of their home by firemen.

I have lived near Indian Creek for 27 years, and I can add my voice to those who say it isn't like it used to be. This will be a long and expensive process to find workable solutions to what is only going to become worse before it gets better.

Kudos to Parks Commissioner Wade Wagner and the City for making repair of the Sac and Fox Trail a top priority! Repairs are due to be completed sometime in September. It is far too great a community treasure, not to repair it.

Issues relative to minimizing future trail damage need to be examined. Congratulations to Keith Fletcher on being named Iowa Trail Volunteer of the Year (see story, page 3). I have a good feel for the amount of time Keith has given to the Grant Wood Trail the past five years, and it would astound most of you. The same can be said of last year’s winner, Ron McGraw, relative to his work with the City of Cedar Rapids and the Regional Planning Commission. LCTA and the citizens of this area are fortunate to have two people this committed to improving our community.

Marion Mayor Vic Klopfenstein and City Manager Jeff Schott seem to have things looking very positive in their community. The meeting to discuss what to do with the Chicago Central Railroad property if abandoned, showed me a leadership team determined to make Marion a better place in which to live. The large turnout and comments from those attending showed a number of business leaders and regular citizens eager for the same.

I hope your Fourth of July was a good one. It all seemed very different this year, yet better.

Most of the Grant Wood Trail activity continues to be focused on the completion of the flat car bridge. D & N Fence Company has now installed the fence posts for the chain link fence (see photo, page 3). These posts will be cut off to the proper length before the chain link fencing is installed.

Angle iron strips were welded to both sides of the deck to provide for retaining the edges of the asphalt surface, which will be added later. Metal plates were also welded into place to cover up various openings on the deck of the flat car. Also during this period, four massive metal brackets, two on each end of the bridge, were installed to securely bolt the flat car to the bridge abutments. The brackets are designed to allow one end of the bridge to shift slightly longitudinally as temperature changes occur.

Although the flat car can easily support any and all anticipated loads, we do intend to beef up the structure further by placing heavy wooden timbers between the top of the center pier and the bottom of the flat car. The center pier of the old railroad bridge is presently not being used for any support of the flat car.

Our biggest priority now is getting the bridge approaches constructed and graded so that the asphalting of the deck can be done. This will then be followed by installation of the chain link fencing. A contractor has agreed to build the ramps for us but scheduling of the work has been a problem due to the contractor's heavy backlog of jobs in what has been a difficult season for construction work.

There is a steady amount of work needed to maintain any trail, including the GWT. In particular, a cleared trail with trees along the side will gradually narrow down and close in again if left unattended for too long. Also, large trees or branches may fall across the trail and interfere with using the trail or with mowing of the trail.

A trail cleanup session was held in May to clear the section from Highway 13 to Oxley Road. The photo below shows volunteers in the process of clearing away a tree that had fallen across the trail.

We realize that there are still LCTA members and friends of trails who are not yet familiar with the GWT. If you are one of those people, take time some nice summer day to drive to the Hwy 13 trail head, park your vehicle there and hike down the trail. You will get a feel for what a great recreational resource this will be when it is fully developed and has an all-weather surface!

The Chicago Central & Pacific RR will be abandoning their existing rails through Marion for a distance of approximately 3.8 miles. The route follows 6^th Avenue from downtown and extends across Marion Blvd, continuing west to the city limits of Cedar Rapids. The downtown is adjacent to paved streets resulting in a flat paved section. The area to the West is a typical rural RR section.

The RR Company has indicated to the City that they are willing to sell their Right-of-Way (ROW) for $2.00 per square foot for a total cost of $3 to 4 million. Undoubtedly, there will be several hoops for the City to jump through before they resolve the cost and other parameters regarding transfer of ownership.

To give the City some input and advice, the City of Marion scheduled an informational meeting in the Marion library on May 30, 2002. The object of the meeting was to receive input regarding uses for the ROW. In attendance were 100+ residents of Marion as well as business owners, LCTA members, County, and other residents. For one hour, the attendees were broken up into small groups of 8 to 10 people, with the goal of presenting utilization ideas for the RR ROW. The meeting was predominately made up of bike users and sympathizers. All discussion groups named trails as the most important use of the ROW and therefore at top of the list. Other ideas were museums, gardens, and exercise areas. During the brain storming sessions, everyone had input and was able to present their ideas. Residents adjacent to the ROW indicated an interest in purchasing RR property but were willing to coordinate with the City in allowing trails through or in conjunction with any property purchase. The ownership of the RR ROW could serve several functions, including providing an alternative route to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail as well as other trails within the Metro Area.

The opportunity to purchase RR ROWs within a city's corporate limits does not happen on a regular basis. It is a fantastic opportunity when a RR ROW becomes available. In order to be prepared, the City has appointed a Task Force of Marion residents, armed with the input of the May 30^th meeting, to assist in reviewing alternatives, uses, and general concepts. The first step has been taken and we look forward to observing the progress as this project becomes a reality.

The LCTA is available to assist in overall planning and will submit updates of this project as they become available.

Keith Fletcher, pictured at right, was named Trail Volunteer of the Year for 2001 in the state of Iowa, by the American Hiking Society. The AHS, which promotes trail development nationwide, selected Keith for his tireless work with the Grant Wood Trail. Trail building sounds like fun, but the reality of the Grant Wood Trail includes thousands of hours of researching abstracts and titles, attending meetings with government agencies and apprehensive neighbors, engaging in complex purchase negotiations, trying to line up volunteer workers and donations, and countless other less glamorous tasks.

Despite many trying moments, Keith always has maintained his quiet demeanor and cheerful optimism. He is a very detail-oriented person who has done a fantastic job of leading our organization through this project.

In my mind, two excellent trail vacation destinations are Colorado and Minnesota. In both states, the importance and economic impact that a well-developed trail system brings to a state have been recognized. It is an established fact that trails generate tourism dollars and provide an opportunity for an area to promote other attractions. The advantage for most Iowans is that Minnesota is very close and a very easy drive to some of the most extensive trail networks in the country.

Recently, my wife and I had the pleasure of traveling to Lanesboro, Minnesota for a weekend of biking. Nestled in a deep valley of the Root River, historic Lanesboro is the center of the Root River Trail System, a series of state-maintained paved trails in southeastern Minnesota totaling almost 60 miles in length. This system is perfect for bicycling, cross-country skiing, bird and nature watching, hiking, jogging, or inline skating.

We have a tradition of spending a weekend in Lanesboro with two other couples every May, where we enjoy biking, inline skating, eating, and shopping. Lanesboro, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a great destination that has dramatically improved its business district over the past several years.

Lanesboro is an easy drive from Linn County, approximately three hours north of Cedar Rapids through the rolling hills of northeastern Iowa. Once you get to Lanesboro and are driving downtown, you are greeted by a large waterfall.

As the name of the trail system implies, 41.3 miles of the trail follows the Root River or its South Branch. This allows trail users opportunities to watch people tubing, canoeing, or fishing as they cruise along the gentle trail.

This is a perfect example of using the natural beauty of a river to help accent a trail. The entire trail is paved, allowing both inline skaters and bikers to easily share the trail. There are also many wooden bridges along the trail as the river weaves wider. The scenery and wildlife is beautiful as you bike through historic bluff country.

The town of Lanesboro has always sported an interesting mix of personalities. At one time, a wine store along Main Street, owned and managed by a friendly, candid woman, provided a nice variety of wines. That woman, however, is no longer a resident, as she is no longer allowed in the state of Minnesota! The state tried to commit her and she skipped town to Missouri. This storefront is now an eclectic furniture store.

This next story is even more bizarre. The building that housed the Little General Store, a bike rental location, was burned down this past spring. Just like a plot from a movie, it seems the police chief wanted to impress his separated wife, who was living in an apartment above the store. He set the building on fire, hoping he could rescue his estranged wife and become a hero. Well, the fire got out of control and 26 hours later, the fire was finally put out, destroying two buildings on Main Street. Luckily, no one was hurt, but unfortunately, our plan to rent a tandem bicycle was in jeopardy, since the bike shop was now homeless. Thankfully, we discovered that the store was renting bikes out of a park right across the street from its prior location.

I am also happy to report that the store now has several new bikes in stock, including the tandem, side-by-side recumbent bike that we rented, providing a wonderful change of pace.

The source of much of this local gossip is the owner of the Old Village Hall, a restaurant located just off Main Street. He is a former engineer at Rockwell, and decided to open his own restaurant. The menu leans toward Italian, but provides a nice twist. It is definitely worth trying while visiting.

Another great restaurant is located on the banks of the Root River. It offers a more casual menu with a wonderful patio and deck overlooking the trail and Root River.

The lodging in the area has long been dominated by bed and breakfast inns, but a new hotel opened this past winter called the Stone Mill Suites. The stone building, completed in 1885, originally served as a cold storage facility, its lower levels being used to store ice cut from the nearby mill pond. The cold storage complemented the egg and poultry receiving and processing plant located on the upper levels of the building. For us, the Stone Mill Suites had the best blend of location, service, and amenities in the area with theme suites and Jacuzzis in every room. There are many quaint inns in the area, along with a variety of bed and breakfasts and campgrounds to help satisfy most anyone’s taste.

Construction continues on the CEDAR RIVER TRAIL going north from 42nd Street towards Sylvia Street. The abutments for the bridge over McLoud Run are in place and the walls along the creek are being built. However, the slowness of the work suggests that it will be several months yet before it can be used.

Funding is now available for proceeding from Sylvia Street north to Blairs Ferry Road and there is still some hope that a contract will be let this Fall.

You might have read in the Gazette about the problems with the crossing of the railroad on north Center Point Road in the Hiawatha section of the trail. This is the same matter which caused cost and schedule problems on the section reported on above. The Railroad charges a sum of money to cross the tracks; a large sum if the city does not accept full liability for any injury or a smaller sum if they accept any and all responsibility. Both cities have paid the larger sum in order to keep the project moving.

Because of this, Hiawatha paid the money in order to send the project to IDOT before the July cut-off so as to allow the contract letting in the next two months. Cedar Rapids has gone through the same problem several times before and they also lost time and money in the process.

Meanwhile, down on the segment going South from Tait Cummins Park, we await more funding and some decision about the fate of the bridge crossing the Union Pacific tracks. We have a route secured east of C Street, but would like to know if the trail could follow the CRANDIC tracks before committing to a redesign. A design exists for part of the segment, but if you have a good memory you will recall that this segment has been through a number of plans and we would like to get it right this time. The funding part requires that Cedar Rapids find a sizable hunk of change ( $500K) to make up for the shortfall between the present cost and the amount which we have from a grant. Unless we find another source, that would mean that the contract would not be let until late next summer.

IDOT has accepted the plan to keep the Hoover Trail work going. There is much work to be done but the sought outcome will be that individual county groups working under an umbrella organization will take charge of the route in their county and to proceed at their own pace. One good outcome for Linn County is the decision by IDOT to make some old grant money available for securing a route and trail construction. LCTA is working with the Iowa Heritage Foundation on this matter. We badly need Linn County or the city of Ely to step forward to take control of the project . The goal here is to get Ely connected to the rest of Linn County and to the CEDAR RIVER TRAIL.

Cedar Rapids Engineering (and Brice AntonJensen from LCTA) is working on a new grant application for the connection to Marion. We are working on trying to bring Marion into the process which will be a long term multi-year effort. Even though grant money is tight we want to be in the “pipeline” with some projects. We are skipping the funding cycle for state money (July) and applying for Federal money (October). Still on the list is a better way of getting across First Avenue and over Indian Creek. The CEMAR TRAIL has consistently been one of the highest priority routes after the CEDAR RIVER TRAIL.

Our trail “wish lists” have shown that trail users would like to have some “loops” and we are working on some candidates to put on the priority list. The West Cedar River loop, a connection to both ends of the Sac & Fox Trail and an Edgewood Road circle have been among the suggestions. Dry creek Trail could form another interesting loop, but would require support from three cities at the same time. Suggestions?

Our trail survey is reported on page 9 of this issue, but I want to comment on the enthusiasm from people we talked to. I was surprised by the number of trail users who had never heard of LCTA! I guess the good news is there are lots of potential members out there.

National Trails Day, on June 1, 2002, found LCTA members doing a usage survey on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and the Cedar River Trail. LCTA literature, as well as issues of the Connections newsletter, were distributed to many trail users. It is still apparent that many trail users still have not discovered us. We are going to be more aggressive in steering these folks toward our website.

Total usage for both trails, for the time period from 8:00AM to 5:00PM,

are shown in the accompanying chart.

CVNT CRT