It’s the 16th of January 2009 and (Baby It’s Cold Outside!) I have some news for you. I held this newsletter until today so that I could report on what happened at the Thursday 15 January 2009, MVRPC Bicycle Planning meeting. The news is below.
Friends of Little Miami Scenic Park
(FLMSP) – I’ve placed this in Trail Construction and Improvements because this organization, FLMSP, was created to help keep the Little Miami Scenic Park portion of the
Little Miami Scenic Trail in better repair. They became incorporated 30 December 2008, and have set up a new website at:
http://www.flmsp.org/ .Their Home page defines their purpose, what they have already done, and show people what the Little Miami State Park is. There is a page covering the benefits of membership, the membership levels and an application form. There is a page giving details about their first meeting, including a down loadable copy of the presentation. Then there is a media page which has links to most of the media coverage. The next page gives an overview of the Adopt-A-Trail concept. There is a page for people to leave either a public comment in our guestbook, or they can leave a private comment that goes to the Board. Finally there is a page devoted to contact information; it has all of their postal address and many e-mail addresses. FLMSP has the potential to become an important lobbying organization on behalf of the Little Miami Scenic Trail. I urge all of my readers to go look at their new website and consider donating to their cause. Mr. Simeon Copple, interim president of the organization said: “I hope you will find the web site informative and I will tell you when we have any major improvements to it.”
Wolf
Creek Recreation Trail - "Another Bridge to Close For Replacement" – The Edwin C. Moses bridge that crosses the mouth of
Wolf Creek and the Great Miami River in downtown Dayton, will close in February 2009. The bridge will be demolished and replaced with a new $4.5M dollar bridge that is planned to be finished in December 2010. Nothing in the
Dayton Daily News article
(Thursday 15 January 2009 page A9), made any mention of the Wolf Creek Recreation Trail that runs under the bridge. I’ll let you know when I find out. The article also talked about the replacement of the Broadway Street bridge across Wolf Creek that will start reconstruction in late 2010, which will probably also impact access to the trail.
Please look at this Yahoo
Maps photo that will show you both bridges over the Wolf
Creek.
MVRPC Bicycle
Planning Meeting (01/15/09) - As some of you know, I attend
"a lot" of meetings some months in order to get the latest cycling
news for your reading pleasure. Yesterday, 01/15/09, the quarterly Regional
Trails Committee, chaired by Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission was
held in downtown Dayton. What came out of the meeting of interest to you is
as follows:
Trail
Count Day Project - It was proposed that we should start making
counts of trail users in order to use the data to plan for better
bicycling facilities, for one reason. The proposal said in part : "The region should coordinate efforts to count and survey trail users.
A sustained regional count project here could be used to justify investments in trail projects, and supporting infrastructure such as hubs, lighting, rest stops and the like. In addition, the counts and survey responses may assist trail managers in developing trail based programming."
The three county parks districts attending the meeting agree to start
planning for this project.
Bike
Tips - MVRPC passed out a draft document that would be handed out
with the MVRPC 2008 Bike Trails Map. The information would be in a
foldable brochure that would fit into the folded map. Topics to be
included are: "1 Getting Started - Getting Around By-Cycle",
2. Bicycle Equipment Checklist" and "3. Drive Your Bike:
Cycling Safety, Predictably and Visibly.
Bike
To Work Day - This annual event is planned for May 15, 2009. Each of
the county parks departments will be having events as well as some
cities. I'll be providing information to you as I get it.
Miami
Valley Bike Portal - MVRPC showed their fledgling
"bike portal" to provide more information to cyclists in the
area. It's in the early stages yet, but they're working on it.
Mileage
Markers on the Great Miami River Recreation Trail (GMRRT) - I
brought up the suggestion that the GMRRT needs to have consistent
mileage markers in Miami, Montgomery Butler & Warren counties. My
suggestion is based on the fact that the Little Miami Scenic Trail has
one set of markers throughout its length with the zero point at Xenia
Station. I suggested that RiverScape in downtown Dayton would be the
appropriate 0 mileage marker. The idea is being studied.
My
Bike Trails Demo - A demonstration of http://www.mybiketrails.com/
was shown by it's owners. They showed some of the features of their
website which you should take a look at. I'll be telling you more about
this website as it develops.
Google Earth maps of the entire Miami Valley Trails System
- (Repeat From December 2008)
– A very helpful reader, Mr. Mike Monett, spent a lot of time building the entire trails system into Goggle Earth. Click Here to see his webpage about the trails system. You will need to download and installed the free Goggle Earth software to take advantage of these new maps with links to my website. Mike’s downloadable file will enable you to see all of the trails in the system including some “Bird’s Eye” views of certain areas. Because he has marked the trails in planning in red you can see where our trail system will expand in the future. On the maps those places marked with a “P” have more information, including some “Bird’s Eye” views and links to the webpage on my website that has the detailed information to go along with Mike’s efforts. Mike says: "Keep watching. I am improving the map system all of the time and you can expect additional features." Also, if you see something on the maps that doesn't look right please let me know and I'll forward your concerns to Mike so we can make changes and remove mistakes.
Remember. You have to download and install Google
Earth in order to see and use these maps.
Updated Statistics page with end of year 2008 data
- I update this page about quarterly to tell those interested of the activity of this website. In January 2009, I put up the annual Google Analytics report for 2008 and added some information from
Quantcast, which tells about the kinds of people that come to my website. The Quantcast data is very similar to that collected by the Ohio, Kentucky & Indiana Council of Government’s
“Little Miami Scenic Trail (Trail Users Study)” measured in 1997 and published in 1999.
Move from MSNBC to Multiply - In last month's newsletter (December 2008), I told you that my MSNBC website, that I use primarily to send emails to my members was going away as of February 2009. If you have not yet read it you can find it
by Clicking
Here.
I started migrating content to Multiply last Thursday; 8 January 2009. By now all of you should have gotten an email from Multiply telling you that the content was moving and what you had to do to get an ID on Multiply. The new URL for Miami Valley RailTrails on Multiply is:
http://miamivalleytrails.multiply.com/
I intend (once I learn how) to use my new Multiply site, to continue to send monthly newsletters to you. I believe that Multiply will allow us more flexibility as you will see. You will able to post audio, video as well as pictures and there is a blog section. You will notice that all inputs are "moderated". That means I have to approve all postings before they go on to the website. This is to prevent porn or other inappropriate material.
If you decide to move your membership from MSNBC to my new Multiply site, well and good. If you do not wish to do so, I'd rather not lose you as a customer. Just send me an email and ask to be added to the other mailing list that I use to send emails from my PC to members. That will keep you as a member.
The Sherman Avenue Bridge on the Buck Creek Trail in Springfield – This is the new bridge that has a bicycle lane on it to take the trail from the South side of Buck Creek to the North side. Any photos provided by my faithful users, will be credited with their name. (Repeat from December 2008).
Simon Kenton Trail
- This month I thought that all of you should take a look at my Simon Kenton Trail pages. The trail starts in downtown Springfield where it meets the Northern end of the Little Miami Scenic Trail. The trail runs North from there 17.9 miles to Urbana, Ohio. There are four webpages that comprise the Simon Kenton Trail on the website. They are as follows:
If you find these newsletters and my Miami Valley RailTrails website of use to
you, please pass the information on to your friends and neighbors who might enjoy our
Miami Valley Trails System, the wonderful system of multi-use trails in Southwest Ohio. Then they can write me
and get on the mailing list to get their own copy of this newsletter. Our trail
system is wonderful for
walking, running, in-line skating, birding, fishing and cycling and on some
trails horseback riding. You see more wildlife from one
of our trails than most anyplace else.
All of my newsletters are posted to my website at the same time I send you this
text version. The URL for your use is: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/join_our_mailing_list.htm
