After the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) offered to contribute $300,000 toward acquiring property easements and Traverse City commissioners voted this week to finalize a trail design, the city is moving forward with plans to extend the downtown TART Trail from the new Traverse City Senior Center to the Peninsula Drive/East Front Street intersection.

During the reconstruction of Grandview Parkway/East Front Street last year, several improvements were made to the TART Trail as part of a TART Bayfront Improvement and Extension plan approved by city officials in 2023. Trail upgrades were completed from Division Street to Hall Street, Clinch Park to the Murchie Bridge, and Sunset Park to the Senior Center. The extension plan calls for eventually continuing the TART Trail from the Senior Center all the way to Eastern Avenue and improving trail connections from Clinch Park through the volleyball courts and West End Beach. However, not enough funding was available to tackle the entire trail system at once, with the work instead planned to be completed in phases.

Though only 700 feet, the trail segment planned between the Senior Center and the Peninsula Drive/East Front Street intersection represents a “bottleneck spot” in the corridor, according to City Planning Director Shawn Winter. In addition to utilities lining the right-of-way, the segment is tightly sandwiched between East Front Street and seven private properties. Crossing those properties will require property easements – something the city hasn’t been able to afford to date, though discussions have been ongoing with property owners for over a year, according to Winter.

While wrapping up the Grandview Parkway/East Front Street reconstruction, MDOT approached the city with a possible solution. The state had approximately $300,000 left over in a real estate budget it had for its own easement acquisitions for the road project. “They are willing to use these funds to help secure the necessary easements (for the trail), including making financial offers to property owners for the easement contributions, and to provide staff assistance in the acquisition process,” according to a memo from Winter. MDOT would then hold those easements, as they’d be adjacent to the state’s right-of-way.

To use the state funding, the city needs to complete additional work including surveying the corridor to ensure the final trail design matches the real-world conditions of East Front Street after the reconstruction. Creating easement exhibits and going through MDOT permitting and review would also be a city responsibility. City staff presented a request to commissioners Tuesday to use Progressive Companies (formerly Progressive AE) – the firm that designed the TART Bayfront Improvement and Extension plan – at a cost of $20,000 to complete those tasks and finalize the trail design.

While most commissioners were supportive of the trail extension, some – who had been critical of previous design elements in the trail plan – didn’t want to keep working with Progressive Companies. Commissioner Tim Werner sought to put the design finalization work out to bid with the goal of getting the “best possible design for our community.” However, TART Trails Trail Planning & Management Director Chris Kushman said that the space constraints mean “there just isn’t any room for any deviation” from anything other than a straightforward extension of a 10-foot-wide path through the corridor. “We don’t see the room for creativity in this section,” he said of the trail design.

Staff also warned that going out to bid would likely result in a higher price tag for the city because Progressive Companies completed all the previous design work and was already familiar with the project, creating economies of scale. City Manager Liz Vogel said a request-for-proposals (RFP) process could also push contract approval out to April or later, risking the possibility that MDOT – which is wrapping up its final documentation for that section of road reconstruction – would simply move on. “There is a chance that before this board could approve an RFP that that ($300,000) might not be available,” she said.

Commissioners voted 5-2 to move ahead with the Progressive Companies contract, with Werner and Commissioner Jackie Anderson opposed. According to TART Trails Chief Executive Officer Julie Clark, the design work will help generate an estimated construction price tag for the new trail segment. Funding hasn’t yet been allocated for building the trail – but both Clark and Winter note that city commissioners will be heading into budget talks this spring, providing a potential opportunity for the work to be included in the city’s 2025-26 budget.

In addition to more trail work planned this year as part of the planned rebuild of M-72/Grandview Parkway from Division Street in Traverse City and M-22/Bay Shore Drive to Cherry Bend Road in Elmwood Township, other sections of the TART Bayfront Improvement and Extension plan could be targeted for implementation going forward. That includes the segment between Peninsula/East Front and Eastern Avenue, another area that could be tackled in multiple phases. The city has sole ownership over the stretch from Peninsula/East Front to Bryant Park, while MDOT has ownership over the roadway from Bryant Park to Eastern Avenue.

The city section could be complex because public input has strongly supported adding a separate bike lane on Peninsula Drive along the waterfront side, narrowing the road, and adding curb and gutter, according to Winter. That would make the corridor more of a “residential street” than the speedway it often acts as today between Old Mission Peninsula and downtown, says Winter. Peninsula Drive residents and Bryant Park beachgoers have long criticized that stretch of road as dangerous and called for improvements. However, reconstructing it represents a “greatly expanded scope than just a trail project,” Winter notes. For that reason – and because of uncertainty over federal grant opportunities – Winter anticipates any work in that corridor will likely be “further out” in the future.