Charles Slat has a good article in today’s Monroe Evening News about the beaches and parks in Monroe’s resort communities.  The parks are private and for the use of the residents only.  But that doesn’t stop outsiders from using them.

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070530/NEWS01/105300050

BTW, I do have some thoughts on this.  First of all, the resort communities have every right to keep non-residents out.  And people should respect that. 

However, I’m not sure that I’ve every really liked the way Monroe County’s shoreline has been structured politically.  If you drive down Dixie Highway, what you see is Balkanization.  Every little community has its own little spot, shielded from view and off-limits to anyone else.  And the communities don’t really flow together.  Each is its own little fiefdom.  Personally, I think that it was some pretty bad overall planning.

I think it would have been better if our forefathers had taken a large-scale approach to the shoreline, developed the land off the lake and kept the actual shorefront for everyone’s public access.  Good planning these days means making connections between communities.

Of course, that’s not what happened.

But, I do think that there are some opportunities to make the situation better.  There are some plans to repave sections of Dixie Highway in the next few years.  I hope that some consideration will be given to building a pedestrian pathway along Dixie.  That way residents of the resort communities could bike safely to Sterling State Park.  And campers at Sterling could bike up to the Vince’s Hot Dog stand on Pointe Aux Peaux road or to the Detroit Beach Pizzeria.  It’s the next logical step after the Riverwalk gets connected to Sterling.

Here’s a link about one piece of the paving project:

http://www.frenchtownresortdistrict.org/Updates.htm

BTW, the idea of a pedestrian path along Dixie Highway between Sterling State Park and Pointe Mouillee State Game Area is one of the recommended objectives of the Frenchtown Township Recreation Master Plan.  The Goals and Objectives section is on P.40.  Check it out here:

http://www.co.monroe.mi.us/Monroe/uploadedFiles/frenchrecplan.pdf

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