Bike path committee awards engineering contract for next phase

VERNON-There's good news for Vernon bicyclists. The township has awarded Harold E. Pellow & Associates a contract to complete engineering work on the segment of the path that extends from the Maple Grange Road Bridge to Vernon Crossing Road. Although some preliminary construction will take place during the autumn, major construction won't begin until spring 2006. The primary aim will be to create the north-south spine of the 10-foot-wide trail, which ultimately will connect Warwick, N.Y. and Hardyston with Vernon, following a course through the middle of the Vernon valley. The township hopes to build offshoots from the trail at some future time, and the state's master plan calls for the path to extend the length of the state to Cape May. In the first phase of the bike path, cyclists share the road with vehicular traffic, but second phase of the path will be entirely off road except for where it will cross Maple Grange Road. The bike route finished so far has two forks at Price's Switch Road. The first shares the road from Price's Switch onto Meadowburn Road, which winds through farmland to the New York state line. The left fork follows Price's Switch past the 1840s Price's Switch schoolhouse up the hill past the Canal Road lane to the New York border. Another segment leads down Buckey Way, and still another follows the unpaved section of Canal Road. The current plan was set at a meeting attended by former mayor John Logan, Vernon Bike Path Committee Chairman; Township Manager Don Teolis; Assistant Manager Gary Gardner, Township Engineer Lou Kneip, and Engineering Consultant Cory Stoner of Harold Pellow & Associates. "After a couple years of effort from the bike path committee, we are finally about to move forward with construction," said Logan. "The bike path will offer another valuable recreational resource to the town's citizens and visitors. It's all very exciting." Progress on the bikeway was delayed until the township concluded its purchase of the Maple Grange property, said Gardner. A series of Department of Transportation grants has provided $350,000 for the project, said Kneip, who said about $100,000 has been spent so far. The DOT grant expires in spring 2006, so the township is under pressure to move along with the project. The township has used a portion of the original grant to install bike-friendly storm-water drains along the route, Gardner says, and it has erected a series of bike-route identification signs. Department of public works staffers also have widened Canal Road and have created a parking area that will accommodate about five vehicles "The township plans to use public works staffers to do as much of the work as is practical," Gardner explained. "We plan to pave sections of a 10-foot-wide path, and surface other segments in crushed stone or a similar material. We'll have to be sensitive to areas that cross wetlands where permeable surfaces are required," said Kneip.