The Midtown Bike Path in Wichita was dedicated on April 8 in Otis Park, 13th and Market. Below are excerpts from a City of Wichita news release:
Built on abandoned Missouri-Pacific railroad right-of-way, the 10-foot wide path stretches 1.5 miles from Wichita Street and Central Avenue to 15th Street at Broadway. Features include:
- Victorian-style pedestrian lighting
- Brick columns and steel archways spelling out Midtown at 15th & Broadway and at 8th & Wichita Street
- A plaza at Otis Park in the form of a railroad turntable
- Sunken planting beds (rain gardens) at Otis Park and Park Elementary School (9th and Main Street)
- Benches, drinking fountain, trash receptacles, and bike racks also carry out the turn-of-the-century look of the path
The project got its start in late 2004 as a result of a grant for which the Historic Midtown Citizens Association applied. Nearly 80 percent of the $1.35 Million project was funded by KDOT Transportation Enhancement Funds from that grant.
Below are excerpts from a news release from Travis Boley with the Oregon-California Trail Association:
The U.S. House of Representatives passed HR-146 &ndasg; the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 — by a vote of 285-140 last week, and yesterday it was signed into law by President Obama. The Act includes authorization to study sixty-four additional routes and cutoffs of the Oregon, Mormon Pioneer, California, and Pony Express National Historic Trails, including four segments that begin in Leavenworth and well over a dozen additional trail segments in the greater Kansas City metropolitan areas. The bill was previously approved by a large margin in the Senate.
It is a boon for historic trail preservation in many Midwestern and Western states, including Missouri and Kansas. It is the most significant boost to the National Trails System since Congress established National Historic Trails as a category of the National Trails Act in 1978. Glenn Harrison, president of the Independence, Missouri-based Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA) stated that he'd been “hoping for this for a long time. This bill will enable the National Park Service to conduct feasibility studies for designation of important routes in 14 states from Missouri to the Pacific Coast and will add thousands of miles of additional historic trails to the National Trails System, which will serve to more fully preserve our nation's heritage.”
Added Bill Martin, vice-president of OCTA, “Passage of this legislation will have a long-term benefit for the preservation of the historic trails. It will help assure that thousands of additional miles of emigrant routes are not only identified, but are not lost to history. We are grateful to all Americans who reached out to their elected officials and urged support for the bill.”
The bill includes feasibility studies for additional routes in Missouri and Kansas of the California National Historic Trail, such as the Fort Leavenworth-Blue River Route, the Gum Springs-Fort Leavenworth Route, the Fort Leavenworth-Kansas River Routes, the Atchison/Independence Creek Routes, the Blue Mills-Independence Road, Blue Ridge Cutoff, Westport Road, Westport Landing Road, Westport-Lawrence Road, and the Road to Amazonia (just north of St. Joseph, Missouri).
An 1849 trail to California blazed by Cherokees in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) is also included in the bill. The Cherokee Trail originates in northeast Oklahoma and then traverses southern Kansas along a shared route with the Santa Fe National Historic Trail. The Cherokee Trail turns north near Pueblo, Colorado and follows Colorado's Front Range into southern Wyoming just west of Laramie before turning west. The trail joins the main branch of the California National Historic Trail at Fort Bridger, Wyoming.
The bill would study shared routes of the Oregon and California National Historic Trails, such as the St. Joe Road from St. Joseph, Missouri to near Marysville, Kansas.
The Secretary of the Interior will undertake a study of the approximately 20-mile southern alternative route of the Pony Express National Historic Trail from Wathena, Kansas to Troy, Kansas.
A study of the Fort Leavenworth Road, Ox Bow Route, and alternates in Kansas and Missouri (Oregon and California Trail Routes used by Mormon emigrants) will be conducted for the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trails.