Pace picking up for trail projects

2001-05-27
By Gregory Potts
Staff Writer

The city’s trail system all got started with a 1½-mile asphalt track on the southeast shore of Lake Hefner built in 1984.

Slowly but surely the trail was expanded until it finally circled the entire lake by the late 1990s. Today, the Lake Hefner Trails are popular with dog walkers, joggers, bicyclists, skaters, and others.

But the pace is picking up. The city introduced a citywide trail system master plan in 1997. In all, the plan includes 208 miles of pedestrian and cyclist trails.

The Oklahoma City Council last month awarded a contract to Vantage Paving to build south Oklahoma City’s first trail. The 10.5-mile South Grand Boulevard Trail will cost an estimated $1.73 million. Work on the project is expected to begin in late June. The project is expected to take 150 work days, which equals about seven months.

The path of the trail goes through Trosper, Oliver, and Woodson Parks.

Funding for the South Grand Boulevard Trail comes from a 1995 bond issue.

The city has also budgeted Maps funds for a trail on the east shore of Lake Overholser and for the North Canadian Central Greenway, which will form a loop, together with the South Grand Boulevard Trail.

In December 2000, voters approved bond funding for six more trails: the Katy Trail, the Hefner/Overholser Trail, the Tinker/Draper Trail, the Lightening Creek Trail, and the Earlywine Trail.

In all, the city has funded 46.3 miles of trails.

The next two projects beyond the South Grand Boulevard Trail will be the Katy Trail and Hefner/Overholser Trail. The city has already hired Land Plan of Tulsa and Smith Roberts of Oklahoma City as engineer for the projects.

The Katy Trail, estimated to cost more than $2 million, will follow the path of the old Katy Railroad line between the Bricktown area and the area of the Oklahoma City Zoo and Omniplex.

And the Hefner/Overholser Trail, funded at $1.17 million, will connect the two northwest Oklahoma City lakes.

All content copyrighted 2001 The Oklahoma Publishing Co.