The meeting by the Montgomery County Transportation Improvement District drew about 50 people, asking questions about the trail’s path and how it is being selected. Based on the input, another meeting will be scheduled, said Steve Stanley, executive director of the TID.
The connector, which as proposed would be 4,500 feet, would allow access by walkers, runners or cyclists from the river to over Interstate 75 and beyond without straying from the path, according to area officials.
The “preferred alternative” for the project, estimated to cost more than $500,000 and be completed in 2015, would run along Medlar Road and turn past Medlar View Elementary School and Miamisburg Soccer Association fields on city-owned property, said Stanley.
Hugging four parcels of private property, it would then turn again before twisting back again, said Vanessa Glotfelter, vice president of Barge Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon, Inc., an engineering firm working with the TID on the project.
The proposed route, linking the 2.5-mile Medlar Trail, which starts at the Great Miami, to a path stopping at Byers Road is an “invasion of privacy,” said Sarah Franks, who owns a 10-acre parcel on Medlar Road.
Franks said the proposed route would also invite crime, litter and loitering in the neighborhood. She mentioned a bike path user who she said was sexually assaulted along a route in the Dayton area as an example.
Franks and others also said officials should have presented alternatives for the route, rather than just present one option.
“When people presented other options, they shot them down pretty fast,” she said.
The TID considered other alternatives, but outlined the one Monday officials said they thought was the most viable, said Stanley.
While Stanley said another meeting will likely be held in the fall, Franks said some clearing of property on the option presented is already taking place, leading her to believe a final route had been selected.
“What they said here and their actions are two different things,” she said.
The alternative outlined by officials “is about the best you can do,” given the obstacles to connect the paths, said Rob Quackenbush, president of the soccer association.
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