Another survey of the bikeway progress. I can tell you that some of the heavy equipment has been hauled away on flatbed trailer rigs. Starting at the northwest corner this image shows the trail just shy of finished and ready for paving. It’s been fallow like this for at least a couple of weeks now as the activity is mostly on the southern half of the loop.
Taking a clockwise direction, I note this next image is one of several spots that really does need another foot or two of cover. Here’s the problem: With all the attention focused on the other end of the loop, this northern end is going to suffer washouts in several places before the crews get back to this part.
Out of about six critical spots, only one has any rip-rap at all, and it’s not enough. Two culverts are already choked with silt and serving no purpose at all. They will have to rework several of these quite a bit before paving as they are right now. This third image (right) shows the north end of the eastern long side of the loop, and it’s still pretty rough.
Most of the trail on the long eastern side runs through the woods and is currently very difficult to access with my bike. Earlier this week I saw the survey team working on the very southern tip where the old shore road is the future bikeway path. Today I see the stakes coming up off that road, and then cutting into the woods on the western side of the gate. They cross the main road in this image (above left) on the far side of the intersection.
The stakes turn parallel to the road, march over the rise and down the other side, but not very far. So there remains a gap of a few miles between the last survey stake and other end below the dam where active work is going on, coming back this way.
For the time being, that work stops at an open culvert (above right) that will have to be removed and replaced with a tunnel culvert. If you could see it better, you’d recognize that the preparation of the soil is quite finished, and it’s ready for paving. It’s like that all the way back along the dam, up the slope and across the old construction entrances near the water tower.
I couldn’t get a shot of the paver now working very close to that tower and coming toward the dam area. There was too much traffic and no safe place to stand without the risk of hungry insects in the grass devouring me. But the crew was putting down the final layer over a long section running from the corner of the dam north along the western side of the side lake. The image here shows asphalt that is still pretty warm and spongy. Meanwhile, the curb crew is still working on the section along the shore between Points 4 and 5. There’s almost no way to get past them; on one side is the water, and on the other side is thick woods.
Somewhere north of the entrance to point 6 is where the pavement ends and the fallow section begins. My guess right now is that the crews will continue working along the new path below the dam. I expect next week they’ll replace the open culvert and continue plowing and smoothing all the way up the hill on the other end of the dam and connect with the very active crew plowing down the woods on the southern end of the long eastern side. It could all be finished somewhere around New Year’s Day.
