The Kalamazoo River Valley Trail has an east side and a west side. What it lacks is a middle. The city says that’s going to change this year. It says it expects a KRVT connection to be “substantially complete" by the end of 2016.
If the city succeeds in closing the gap, it will break a streak of false starts for a downtown trail stretching back to the 1990s.
The KRVT leaves off for about a mile downtown, leaving walkers and cyclists to navigate on their own. The distance did get slightly narrower last year, with a short addition to the east end.
City Engineer Matt Johnson says the proposed route is a middle path that took many proposals into account.
“There’s so many different stakeholders and opinions that we never could really get 100 percent buy-in from the community – the bike commuters, the recreational bikers, the traveling bikers, DKI,” he says. DKI stands for Downtown Kalamazoo Incorporated.
Johnson says without compromise, the connection would never get built.
“Obviously we’ve been working on this for going on 20 years now and we could never decide on a route. So everybody is giving up a little bit of something and everybody’s getting a little bit of something,” he says.
The route the city proposes avoids crossing Kalamazoo Avenue at Water and Porter Streets (Water Street joins at an angle, just west of Porter). That spot has proven a sticking point as the city works out a route.
Standing on the Porter side of the intersection across from Water Street Coffee and to the side of Bell’s Eccentric Café, Johnson has to talk over the freight train that also crosses here.
Johnson says when the train is not blocking Kalamazoo Avenue, non-motorists face three lanes of “almost nonstop” one-way traffic.
“Which makes crossing more like playing Frogger, where you have to dodge cars. And when you start throwing in bikes it’s a whole other safety issue,” he says.
When the city built a temporary, “pop-up” trail this summer to test a permanent route, the path crossed Kalamazoo Avenue and followed Water Street. Johnson says many people who rode that path told the city they found the crossing dicey.
Johnson says the city has not worked out a way to build a safe crossing there by its 2016 deadline. Instead, it’s looking to the west toward Pitcher or Edwards Street.
City Planner Rebekah Kik says the attraction of Pitcher Street is that it’s the next-closest light to Water and Porter.
“Obviously that would be the next absolute best option for us. But that also has its challenges because the way that it’s triangular with Water Street on one side. It’s a short block and there are two buildings that are quite tight in there,” she says.
Then there’s Edwards Street, a block to the west of Pitcher. The problem is that it’s frequently closed for events.
“So we have our consultant kind of putting these different pieces together and seeing what’s the best option and then we’ll come back to our design team and say OK here are the constraints here, how should we move forward,” she says.
Not crossing at Water, Porter and Kalamazoo Avenue has brought the estimated budget for the project down significantly. Johnson says it had come in at about $1.3 million, whereas the new estimate is approximately $950,000. The cost will be paid with private funds, says Kalamazoo County Parks Director David Rachowicz.
Beyond Kalamazoo Avenue, the route has westbound trail users passing through the Arcadia Creek Festival Place and the Kalamazoo Mall, along Arcadia Creek and then north on Westnedge Avenue to join the trail’s west end.
City Engineer Johnson says the entities involved in planning the trail differed on some recent drafts of the path.
“There were concerns initially about routes and choices and why decisions were made on what we did,” he says.
But he says the city and Kalamazoo County held a meeting for trail “stakeholders” on February 19, where “everybody was understanding and in agreement that this is the route the city and the county are going to push forth.”
“We want to get this done in 2016. It is the backbone of not just the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail and the County Parks trailway program but also the City of Kalamazoo’s nonmotorized transportation plan,” he says.
County Parks director Dave Rachowicz says he backs the proposed pathway.
“I can just tell you where we’re at today we’re really happy with the route. There’s lots of partners involved. It’s a very complex project, but we believe things are moving along and we’re looking forward to construction in 2016,” he says.
Rachowicz says he’s glad to see the city planning a trailway, not just bike-friendly signs.
“Another thing that was really important to our group was having not having a sharrow or a bike lane but having a separate non-motorized facility that all level users would be able to use and use safely,” he says.
A sharrow is a lane with markings that remind motorists to share with bikes.
Johnson says building the downtown connection is the city’s top priority for non-motor friendliness downtown. But he says the city plans to circle back to Water and Porter Streets and Kalamazoo Avenue when it can.
“The trailway coming through here is really going to spur non-motorized. And then if and when we can get a light at this intersection, we can then do some other treatment down Water Street,” he says.
But Johnson says a final plan for the intersection is likely to take time.
“Anything in this area is going to be very expensive. And we don’t want to rush our way through it and then realize we made a mistake and have to redo it,” he says.
