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Quad States' Trails meetings held
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Ross Greathouse and John Royster have been holding a series of meetings in key cities in Missouri and Kansas as they move forward with Phase II of the Quad States' Trails plan. In the past two days they held meetings in Kansas City and St. Joseph. About 15 attended the meeting in Kansas City and 50 attended the St. Joseph meeting.
Greathouse and Royster are making these points:
Quad States is a plan for interconnecting many hundreds of miles of existing and planned trails to make a trail network. However, no trail would change its name or be called the "Quad State Trail".
They are encouraging and empowering local groups to create their own trails that can link up to create a larger whole.
States like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and now Iowa--all of which have some kind of dedicated funding source to create trails--are pulling far ahead of other states that have no such funding.
Iowa has a 1/2 cent fuel tax that goes towards funding trails.
They are including several other alternatives and loops which will make the Phase II Quad States plan even more ambitious than our sketch of the Quad-States map here.
In particular, there is the possibility of a trail to connect Maryville and Topeka, KS--creating the possibility of several loop trail routes encompassing the "four corner" area of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri.
It is possible for small local groups to buy and hold rail lines and then gradually develop them into trails--at a surprisingly low cost. That is how they have developed some hundreds of miles of trail in Nebraska.
Citizens and private donors in Nebraska have shown a surprising willingness to support trail building financially. The Nebraska Trails Council has raised over $5 million in private funds for trail acquisition and development.
