CD: Bike path won’t connect Starkville to MSU

JUNE 24, 2009

TIM PRATT

STARKVILLE — The Lynn Lane bike path project is dead.

Kevin Stafford, of engineering firm Neel-Schaffer, told the Starkville Board of Aldermen Tuesday the whole scope of the Lynn Lane project needs to be changed. Neel-Schaffer asked the Federal Highway Administration for an extension to get all the final right-of-way acquisitions done, and to take care of other issues needed before the project can move forward, such as environmental studies, but the FHA didn’t grant the extension, Stafford said.

The city would have to tie up all the loose ends before the Sept. 30 deadline in order to get roughly $1.2 million in federal moneys, which would be distributed through the Mississippi Department of Transportation. The Sept. 30 deadline, however, isn’t feasible, Stafford said.

Instead, the engineering firm is moving forward with a revised bike path plan, which would connect the Longmeadow neighborhood with McKee Park and the Sportsplex facility. The path would loop around the Sportsplex and total roughly 9,000 feet in length, Stafford said.

Mayor Dan Camp and the board, who previously said they would contribute roughly $300,000 in matching funds toward the Lynn Lane path, were skeptical Tuesday when hearing about the new plan.

“That’s an awful lot of city money to circle the park,” Ward 3 Alderman P.C. “Mac” McLaurin said.

Read complete article from Commercial Dispatch.