Wellington ready to talk again about trail system plans

By Steven Olson
Correspondent

On Aug. 9 at 7.p.m in the Leeper Center, representatives of Olsson Associates, a consulting firm that plans and designs park and trail systems, will unveil their concepts for an expanded parks and bicycle trail system for Wellington.

Jerry Adamson, a landscape architect for Olsson Associates, said his firm will present the proposed "spine" of the bike trail and how it will link to parks and other points of interest in the town.

The spine of the trail will follow Boxelder Creek as it moves through Wellington, he said, so that the trail will stay on land that will never be developed, and it will avoid a lot of conflicts with landowners.

"The primary purpose will be to review concepts with people and see what they like and what they don't like," said Adamson.

At present, Wellington has a half-mile of bicycle trail located south of the new Rice Elementary School. That trail is fine gravel, or what is called "soft surface" in Adamson's trade. Adamson said he would be recommending concrete for the new trail system. Adamson said the trail in this proposal would be from 7 to 10 feet wide.

"It [soft surface] looks nice now, but it is very maintenance intensive," Adamson said. "You've got to fix it every year. Concrete is more expensive, but you don't have the maintenance costs."

The meeting will also take suggestions for some kind of pedestrian crossing either over or under Interstate 25. The concern is that some children living on the east side of I-25 will try running across the interstate to get to school on time. So far the proposed alternatives are to build a pedestrian crossing from scratch, to modify the existing interchange to include a pedestrian crossing, or to clean out and use one of the openings in a multi-opening box culvert beneath I-25.