Newspaper Article

Grindstone Trail should be built, as city pledged

Cooper, Chip

2013

Overview

  Home delivery of the print edition every day*, unlimited access to ColumbiaTribune.com on your computer, tablet and smart phone, as well as the Web App on your computer or iPad. In 2002, the Columbia City Council adopted the first master trails plan. Updates have been confirmed by the council three times since then. The plan calls for an approximately 30-mile nature trail loop that will encircle our town and provide connectivity for feeder trails that will serve the entire community. To date, we are about half-finished building the backbone loop, many feeder trails have been built, and more will be opened soon, bringing more convenient network access to thousands. We also have a funding source to continue building the trail network: the parks sales tax, which was most recently extended by voters in 2010. The council now is considering the fate of the Grindstone Trail, which has long been part of the master trails plan. Its first phase would connect to the Hinkson Trail -- which terminates in Grindstone Park at Old 63 -- and extend access east along the Grindstone Creek to McGuire Boulevard near LeMone Industrial Park, where IBM is located, and the Crosscreek development. Future phases of the Grindstone Trail would take a north fork all the way to the new Battle High School, while a south fork would connect the Old Hawthorne development.

• Publisher: Columbia Daily Tribune