City Council awards $3M to improve Washtenaw County’s Border to Border Trail

Washtenaw County runners and bikers may soon be seeing improvements along the county’s Border to Border Trail. On June 27, the Ann Arbor City Council approved its 2025 Fiscal Year budget, allocating $3 million to support the development of the trail. The money will be given to Huron Waterloo Pathways Initiative, a nonprofit organization that, along with the Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission, leads the funding and construction process of the B2B Trail.

Spanning 35 miles long and 10 miles wide, the B2B Trail is a nonmotorized, accessible pathway that connects the borders of Washtenaw County, from the Pinckney Recreation Area in the northwest to Ford Lake in the southeast. When completed, the trail is expected to be 45 miles long, passing through the cities of Chelsea, Dexter, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Kiff Hamp, executive director of HWPI, described the B2B trail as unique because of its impressive length and increased pathway accessibility for walkers and bikers across the county. 

“We’re talking about 45 or 35 miles of continuous nonmotorized trail, and the neat thing about it is you can use all of it,” Hamp said. “If you’re a bike enthusiast and want to bike nine or eight miles, you can do that in a safe way. … But on the flip side, it also goes through three cities. It goes through townships, it goes through three metro parks, many other nature areas. It goes by two of the biggest hospitals in the state, two huge universities.” 

According to Hamp, funding for the B2B Trail initially came from county millage dollars, voted upon by citizens during local elections. The two types of millage are the road commission millage — 20% of which is allocated to nonmotorized trails such as the B2B — and the county parks millage.

The funding from the Ann Arbor City Council provides a new avenue of financial and governmental support for the B2B trail. Hamp said the money will primarily be used to aid the construction of a new segment that will pass through the Barton Nature Area and Bandemer Park. 

“(The funding for the tunnel) is split one-third, one-third and one-third between HWPI or nonprofit county parks and the city of Ann Arbor,” Hamp said. “So it is a huge, huge deal that they’re doing that. It’s a very expensive project, over $6 million.” 

Hamp said the tunnel will complete the Barton-Bandemer segment, the plans for which have been in development for more than 20 years. Currently, pedestrians and bikers must pass over the railroad, owned by the Michigan Department of Transportation and managed by Amtrak, which passes between the Barton Nature Area and Bandemer Park. This method is not only dangerous but also illegal. Instead, the two areas will be connected with a tunnel passing underneath the train tracks.

“This tunnel literally opens up the entire county in a nonmotorized way that has never existed before,” Hamp said. “I would say it’s the single biggest project we’ve had and — difficult and beautiful (as) everything else is — … none of that would matter either if you didn’t have this tunnel that was able to connect in a safe way.” 

Peter Sanderson, project manager for Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation Commission, spoke with The Daily about the challenges associated with the construction and development process for the trail. Sanderson said the city aims to disturb the surrounding habitats as little as possible and said the portion of the trail between Ann Arbor and Dexter is particularly challenging because of the railroad, roads and natural features that make up the area.

“The county is primarily natural features; the Huron River runs right through there,” Sanderson said. “You have the road, Huron River Drive. You have the Detroit to Chicago Amtrak line that runs through there, a lot of private property. So that leaves very little land available to construct the trail. And in addition to that, because it’s next to the river, you have a lot of environmental considerations that need to be diligently thought through about how you’re going to approach that.” 

Sanderson said the collaboration between nonprofits and Washtenaw County has greatly benefited from increasing funding for the trail, gaining greater community support and sharing expertise in trail-building.       

“I know these projects take many years, but we have a lot of irons in the fire at the same time,” Sanderson said. “So that’s how we’ve been able to kind of keep the momentum going — is that I think there was a critical mass of public support (and) private support, through the nonprofit, and then kind of an emphasis put on it at the state level, which helped us secure grants and things like that. Really a lot of it was built on the foundations that were laid in the ’90s and early 2000s.” 

In an interview with The Daily, LSA junior Robyn McCabe, a member of the Michigan Backpacking Club, expressed excitement for the increased opportunities the trail will present for students and nearby community members, especially those newer to hiking. 

“I think it will be a better option for people that don’t have as much experience and just want to walk, especially if it is going through the city and it’s close to campus,” McCabe said. “When you don’t have a car (and) you want to get away from campus, I feel like it could be a good option if you just want to get away and clear your head to have a designated path that goes very, very far.”

Daily Staff Reporter Claudia Minetti can be reached at cminetti@umich.edu.  

The post City Council awards $3M to improve Washtenaw County’s Border to Border Trail appeared first on The Michigan Daily.


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