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.
Ward 7 Alderwoman Janette Self agreed.
“This is kind of like the bridge going to nowhere,” Self said.
The board voted to take the new plan under advisement and discuss it again next Tuesday at its recess meeting in City Hall. Neel-Schaffer plans to talk with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to find out if they would allow a new bike path to pass through the city’s parks.
Because the new path would lie exclusively on city rights-of-way, easement acquisition is a non-issue, Stafford said.
Starkville In Motion’s Ron Cossman was at the aldermen meeting and tried to look on the bright side of the situation, even though the path no longer would connect Mississippi State University with McKee Park, as the Lynn Lane project would.
“Obviously we’re disappointed we’re not going to connect the university to the community and the park system, but I recognize the reality of the situation and that is sometimes you have to take baby steps,” Cossman said. “Getting the two parks connected, plus the neighborhood, that’s good for the community. That’s still a major improvement over what we have right now. We still connect the neighborhood with the two parks.”
Tim Pratt is the Starkville Bureau Reporter for The Commercial Dispatch.
