Trail Resurfacing to Take Place in 2021
via EastLansingInfo
Back in November, an ELi reader wrote in asking about a particularly bumpy section of the Lansing River Trail:
“Dear ELi: I’m writing to ask if you can discover who is responsible for carrying out the trails millage in Ingham County. I use the Lansing River Trail frequently and have noticed that there is a significant stretch of the trail between East Lansing and Lansing which is in a sorry state of disrepair. Indeed, on either end of that stretch (roughly from Clippert St. to just before the spur that leads to Crego Park) recent renovations were done in the form of repairing the wooden planks over water and repaving. But in between, not only is there a wooden bridge in a state of disrepair but the pavement is rutted and seriously damaged. Is there a conflict of jurisdictions here, or a lack of county coordination for these repairs? After the recent millages passed, repairs were made, but apparently in a piecemeal fashion. Could you investigate why there is this long unfinished section in the middle of the trail? Thank you!”
I knew exactly where this reader was talking about – as would anyone who regularly uses that part of the trail. It feels as if, just as you cross from Lansing into East Lansing, the new smooth trail ends and your teeth start rattling. The bridges are also as the reader describes them.
We actually looked into this question back in late November, when the reader asked, but we didn’t get around to publishing the answer because we were deep in annual fundraising season.
Now that the snow is melting, it seems like a good time to bring the good-news answer.
According to Nicole Wallace, the Trails and Parks Millage Program Coordinator for Ingham County Parks, those bridges should be fixed and that part of the trail should be repaved late this summer. Wallace explained that the delay in fixing that part of the trail surface has to do with delays in fixing nearby bridges.
“The reason there is a gap in the pavement fixes is because the City of Lansing needs to get heavy equipment back to this bridge before they fix the pavement in this area. They don’t want to redo the asphalt in that area, only to come in with large equipment for fixing Bridge 21, essentially tearing it up again.”
Wallace noted, “There will also be asphalt work with the project for Bridge 18.” All of this means that “most of this area from Kalamazoo [Street] to Potter Park will have new asphalt.”
