Bike trail could begin by early ‘09

By the end of 2009, bicyclists will be able to ride from Winner’s Circle Park to the sports complex at Liberty Park – without having to hit the road.

Flowood has selected its engineering firm, Weatherford/ McDade Ltd., for a three-mile bike path.

The next step is getting approval from the Mississippi Department of Transportation. After that, the project will be bid in January or February, and construction will start in the spring, said Garry Miller, Flowood’s public works director. It’s expected to be done by the end of next year.

“Once we get started, it won’t take long to build,” Miller said.

The city’s Board of Aldermen approved the project in March 2007. A $750,000 grant from MDOT will fund the bike trail.

The three-mile bike path will run along Liberty Road and Flowood Drive to link the sports complex to Winner’s Circle.

Miller said the path will be built along the streets’ rights-of-way.

Miller said a “tracks to trails” method, where old railways are replaced with bike trails, won’t work because Flowood’s abandoned tracks were removed in the 1980s. During that time, bike paths weren’t a desire of residents, Miller said.

Michael Harrison, a bike consultant at The Bike Rack, welcomes Flowood’s future bike path.

“It will give people in the Flowood area the opportunity to ride their bikes and bring their children along without worrying about traffic,” said Harrison, who rides his bike each day.

Most of The Bike Rack’s customers are recreational riders, and Harrison said he expects it to be popular.

This three-mile stretch will be a segment of a larger network of bike trails in the county that link to the Ross Barnett Reservoir area, Miller said.

The county will construct a bike path along Old Fannin Road to the Ross Barnett Reservoir once the road is widened to five lanes.

RankinCounty Road Manager George Bobo said roadwork will begin in the spring. Crews are in the process of moving utilities.

Bobo said the bike path will be built into the roadway and won’t be separate like a sidewalk.

The county plans to team up with Pinewoods developers and the city of Flowood to construct a bike path along Hugh Ward Boulevard from Lakeland Drive to Spillway Road, Bobo said. Like Flowood, the county will apply an MDOT grant when enhancement funds are offered.

“The next time MDOT takes applications for enhancement money, we will be making an application,” he said.

Bobo said the county applied the last time applications opened for enhancement funds, but MDOTran out of money to give more grants.