By James Feichtner
In response to the unveiling of the Zionsville Parks Dept.’s five-year master plan, the town is seeking community feedback regarding the pedestrian paths and bikeways within the city.
“We did a five-year parks and recreation wide system master plan two years ago, and the number one issue that came out in that was trails,” Parks Director Matt Dickey said. “When trails were specifically mentioned, things like expanding the rail trail was the number one specifically mentioned trail issue. Instituting more trail connectivity was a general issue.”
The first of two open houses was held in Town Hall on Feb. 3 to allow residents the opportunity to provide input on what they would like to see change with current pathways and bikeways.
“We had about 60 people there. It went pretty well,” Dickey said.
Four identical roadmaps of Zionsville were laid out and divided into four categories: current routes taken, destinations, conflicts and wishes. Residents were allowed to use highlighters to provide feedback and mark certain areas of the city they felt needed attention.
“Everything that I directly overheard was all somewhat what we’ve heard before,” Dickey said. “I think the real key that comes out of this process is that by tallying up all that input then we can start to see the prioritization.”
The next public forum will be March 10 in the town hall Community Room, which Dickey said will be “a big part of (the project) where these routes will be mapped out. Then we’ll have an additional chance for people to weigh in on those routes or challenges on those routes.”
In addition to the open house, the town is offering two surveys for residents to provide feedback regarding the plan: an interactive map survey and a community survey.
For more project info or to access the surveys, visit http://www.reacollaborative.com/#!zionsville-pedestrian-and-bikeways-plan/uu3r1.
