For much of the 24-mile Kalamazoo River Valley Trail, bikers, runners, hikers and others enjoy a 10-foot-wide asphalt path. But along a section of Ravine Road, about 0.8 miles, there’s no separate trail.
Kalamazoo County Parks and Expo Center director David Rachowicz said his department, which oversees the KRVT, is eager to change that.
Rachowicz said the county is also close to reopening the Verburg Park pedestrian bridge on the KRVT, and ready to move forward with an eastward expansion.
Ravine Road
The lack of a trail along part of Ravine Road leaves users right next to traffic. Rachowicz said the edge of the road, where KRVT users end up, is often messy.
“There's a lot of gravel companies there, sand companies, so the shoulder of the road is not even great to ride a bike on, let alone walk or jog," he said.
"The trail's multi-use, so it's about 50% pedestrian, 50% bikes. That's a real barrier for people.”
Rachowicz said the county is in the process of acquiring the right-of-way from businesses along Ravine Road, and he hopes to start engineering in the fall.
Verburg Park
Verburg Park closed in 2022 for cleanup work in the Kalamazoo River. It reopened the next year, but a wooden pedestrian bridge over the river remained closed. Rachowicz said that’s because the decking on the bridge failed prematurely during the cleanup.
“We had come up with sort of an engineering solution to replace that decking with something we think will be more of a long-term solution.”
Rachowicz said the county will start replacing the decking within the month.
Amtrak and eastward expansion
Plans to extend the eastern leg of the KRVT are back on track, after years of delay.
A four-and-a-half mile stretch of the trail connecting Galesburg to Augusta was approved in 2017, and construction was supposed to begin in 2020. But Amtrak opposed plans at the two railroad crossings that intersect the trail.
Rachowicz said now, the county and the railroad have reached an agreement.
“The Amtrak barrier has been resolved. So, in the short term, we're trying to build those sections that require those crossings as soon as possible.”
Extending the trail to 38th Street will add an additional mile and a half to the KRVT.
