Shelby Township awarded $272K for hike and bike trail expansion, park connection

The plan to unite Shelby Township’s Stony Creek Metropark with Chief Gene Shepherd Park as well as Oakland County’s Clinton River and Paint Creek trails got a boost from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments June 19.

The $272,333 pledged by the SEMCOG Regional Clearinghouse Review Committee from its Transportation Alternatives Program for fiscal year 2015 is the latest installment of what will be a total investment of $730,973 in new trail and trail safety upgrades from the Macomb Orchard Trail on Dequindre Road to Chief Gene Shepherd Park on 23 Mile Road.

In addition to the SEMCOG grant, the project is also funded by $108,543 from a Michigan Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund grant and $173,000 from an MDOT transportation grant and tri-party funding, which includes Rochester, the Road Commission for Oakland County and Oakland County, for a new pedestrian crossing on Dequindre.

The project actually got started before the SEMCOG grant was awarded as $20,000 of the $177,097 that the Township is putting into the project came from the Township’s share of a trail crossing upgrade with a pedestrian refuge island in the centerline of Dequindre Road where the Macomb Orchard Trail meets the Clinton River Trail.

“Our residents are getting more than $730,000 in trail construction and enhancement, and the Township is only putting $177,000 into the project,” Township Supervisor Rick Stathakis said. “And that sum is made up of other projects and funds that were already budgeted, so this is not new money being spent for this project. This is why I’m so grateful we have staff in place that understands the nature of grants and how to find the right resources for the right projects.”

The $380,876 in grant money obtained by Shelby Township officials for the project is ahead of the original amount of $300,000 that the township had hoped to realize from the MDNR Trust Fund grant alone.

Originally, a $300,000 grant from the MDNR Trust Fund was contingent on $500,000 in matching funds from a $1.9 million 2010 federal line item to connect existing trails in the city of Utica to Stony Creek by way of River Bends, Holland Ponds, and Chief Gene Shepherd parks and the Macomb Orchard Trail, but it was tabled after bids for that project exceeded cost estimates by more than 10 percent.

“Working with Cindy Martel and Brad Bates, we were able to look through all the projects the Township had in place and give that information over to Carol Thurber,” Youngblood said. “Carol then used her contacts with MDOT and SEMCOG to find the TAP grant that fit our project. It was a great team effort.”

“This brings together two of our community’s top recreation assets, and to do so while finding even more grant money than we had originally budgeted is amazing,” Stathakis added. “This is real dollar and cents proof of our employees’ commitment to Shelby Township, and it’s not often that we can attach a dollar amount on the hard work our employees do.

“That is why it’s very rewarding to tell our residents that, because people like Joe Youngblood, Cindy Martel, Brad Bates and Carol Thurber would not give up on this project, our Township’s trail system is $380,867 better funded than it would have been.”