City unveils plan for new walking, riding trails

By Greg Phillips

Published: July 1, 2008

Dothan Leisure Services met with residents Tuesday night and revealed plans for the city’s upcoming trail improvements.

Assistant Director of Leisure Services Kim Meeker told those in attendance the city will build two separate trails, one for bicycle riders and the other for walkers, joggers and runners.

He also announced the city has received an offer of $223,000 from the Wiregrass Foundation, which would bring the project’s total budget to $300,000. The offer has yet to go before the city commission for approval.

One of the primary issues Meeker said the city hope to address with the improvements is collisions between riders and walkers.

“Riders and walkers together don’t work all that well together,” Meeker said. “Particularly on our trail, they didn’t work together well, because there were some blind corners where a biker might come around quickly, and a runner might be right there.”

The solution, said Meeker, is building two different trails. The biking trail will be asphalt, addressing the concerns of bikers. The walking trail, however, is likely to be covered with what Meeker called soil stabilizer, which will be sprayed over soil to keep it as tightly packed as the city wants.

“It can be manipulated to be as hard or as soft as you want it to be,” Meeker said.

There will still be a few areas where the two trails converge, which Meeker described as being like an off ramp. The converged surfaces will be the same material as the walking trail.

The areas of convergence are a concern to some residents.

“I was initially against the idea of having bikes on the trail. I’ve been running the trail for 30 years,” said Joe Lebrasseur. “I’m in favor of keeping the trails as separate as can be for safety reasons. And it’s about the only place in town you can go for a walk on a hot summer day and get some shade and be secluded from the din of modern day traffic.”

Still, the overall tone of the meeting was positive.

“I think it’s being handled very well,” said runner Carl Griffler. “Initially, because I’m a runner, I was a bit concerned. I think they’re doing a very good job, though, and trying to do their best to accomodate everyone’s concerns. My initial concern was the surface, and I think they’re really making an attempt, and I was surprised at the amount of money that’s being put into it.”

Lebrasseur agreed the city is doing a good job meeting its residents’ needs.

“(Meeker) has covered as many bases as he could. He got input from the runners club, and he’s probably doing as good as could be done with what we’ve got here,” Lebrasseur said.

Meeker said the city could start on the work in about four months, and it would take about six months after that to complete.

“You can’t make it perfect, and I don’t know how the flow situation’s going to be, but given the circumstances, they’re doing as well as one could ask,” Griffler said.