[Vision2020] Thank You Very Much Moscow City Council

[Art Deco]

Paradise Path extension project OK'd; Moscow, ITD set construction date for 2008


By Omie Drawhorn, Daily News staff writer

People riding a bike or walking from Highway 95 toward the east side of Moscow will be able to do so without encountering traffic when a Paradise Path extension is completed. 
The Moscow City Council approved the initiation of the project Tuesday. The Idaho Transportation Department in January approved a $290,000 grant for the extension of the existing pathway. It will be created along the abandoned railroad bed from U.S. Highway 95 at Sweet Avenue, east to the Blaine Street intersection at State Highway 8. 

Construction for the 10-foot-wide, 3,700-foot-long asphalt path is set to start in 2008. The city will match 10.22 percent of the grants to the tune of $33,000, and will pay for the fee with a mixture of cash, in-house engineering work and land acquisition. 

"This will complete the segment from U.S. 95 to the east city limits," said Les MacDonald, Moscow Public Works director. 

The city applied for the grant in February 2005. The portion of the pathway that will extend from Sweet Avenue to Blaine Street is now included in the 2008 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. 

The Paradise Path is part of an interconnecting paved pedestrian and bicycle path system through Moscow on a trail system that extends west to Pullman on the Chipman Trail and eventually will be connected to Troy with the Latah Trail on a former railroad bed. The majority of funds have been provided by ITD. 

Latah County, the University of Idaho, Paradise Path Task Force, Latah Trail Foundation and the cities of Troy and Moscow have contributed to the project either through money or volunteer efforts. 

Latah County purchased much of the rail bed from the railroad salvage company over the past several years and acquired permanent easements for the remaining parcels from neighboring landowners. 

The city, the University of Idaho and the Palouse River and Coulee City Railroad have worked together for several years on the land swap. 

They have yet to remove the rails from the rail beds from the most recent planned addition but will finish with that work by the 2008 construction date. 

The path would connect the University of Idaho to Berman Creekside Park Trail and extend the path from the park east to the end of another existing pathway that begins at Blaine Street and ends at the east city limits. From there, the path turns into the Latah Trail which will extend to Troy. Once constructed, only .25 miles of pathway would remain to complete a crosstown pathway system. 

"There is an urgent need to separate motorized traffic from non-motorized traffic," T. Alan Place, president of the Palouse Road Runners said in a January 2005 letter to IDT. "In recent years two women have been killed on area highways. Neither of them would have died if trails had been available. Trails have become a necessity for public safety." 

Councilman Bill Lambert said he appreciated the efforts to get funding for the project. 

"This makes total sense to me," he said. 

Councilman John Dickinson agreed. "This is an entity that we will look at 10, 20 or 100 years from now and look back and be thankful it's here." 


Omie Drawhorn can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 234, or by e-mail at odrawhorn at dnews.com. 
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