VALLEY COUNTY, Idaho — Two Valley County groups are trying to connect communities with singletrack sidewalks. A singletrack sidewalk is a dirt trail that runs parallel with a road. These would allow walkers, runners, and cyclists a safe route to and from communities.
A year-long feasibility study conducted by the International Mountain Biking Association recommends more than 70 miles of those sidewalks for Valley County.
“We just hope it gets done. We think about it every day,” Dan Barnes and Consolata Viglietti said about the project.
The pair live in a home a few miles southwest of McCall.
“I bought the land in 2000, so almost 20 years,” Barnes said.
Right now there isn’t a trail that connects McCall to Cascade - about 30 miles separate the two towns - but Barnes and Viglietti said they would love to see that happen.
“That way we can get on our bikes and go to Cascade and enjoy the lake down there,” Barnes said.
With the feasibility study complete, the two groups are now working on accomplishing that goal.
“The idea on the valley floor is to just make things accessible to everyone,” said Steve Stuebner, vice president for the Valley County Pathways Board.
Stuebner said he is committed to connecting communities through trails anyone can use.
One way to do that is to connect the bookends of the existing trails in Valley County with the singletrack sidewalks.
“So what we are looking at doing is basically building a 2- to 4-foot wide meandering permeable dirt singletrack trail,” said Andrew Mentzer, spokesperson for the West Central Mountains Economic Development Council. “That would meander alongside the road and potentially through the drainage ditch."
The cost of the singletrack sidewalk would be about $25,000 to $53,000 per mile. By comparison, detached, paved bike paths 8-feet wide cost approximately $100,000 about $250,000 per mile, including design and engineering.
“It’s a low-cost to construct and low-cost to maintain,” Mentzer said.
The trails would mostly be a beginner to intermediate level trail.
“This is for families, for kids, for seniors and everything in between,” Steubner said.
Right now the economic development council and pathways groups are trying to figure out what trails to prioritize. The study came with several recommendations for each community. Some include Farm to Market Road, West Mountain Road, and Norwood Road.
“We are hearing that, yeah, West Mountain Road - it looks really good to us,” Stuebner said. “Other people are saying Farm to Market Road it would be excellent.”
The end goal of this project is to better connect the community and make the area more livable.
“If you like to be outside, and you appreciate community health this is an opportunity to connect all the way from Cascade to New Meadows someday,” Mentzer said.
When it comes to funding for this project, the developers say it’ll cost anywhere between $1.85 million to $3.75 million. That’s because they’re in the outreach stage and they want to hear from the public first on which trails to work on before putting a final price tag on it.