City of Detroit trail users are anxiously awaiting the opening of the new Dequindre Cut Trail.  The trail has already been paved, but some security measures have yet to be completed.  This means the trail will not officially open for another six weeks.  At that time, the trail will provide pedestrian access between Detroit’s Riverfront Trail and Eastern Market.  Free Press excerpts and link:

“I think this is great,” said Jennifer House, a 33-year-old Detroiter, as she strolled along the path Sunday with two friends. “I hope they keep the graffiti.”

The graffiti, some of it spectacular, is staying. It decorates the old bridge abutments and helps to create a dazzling visual effect — gritty artwork, old walls and big shade trees contrasting with the newly paved path, plantings and modern lights and security phones. Fixtures for the lights and phones are in place but remain unfinished.

Above the trail, you can see the Mies van der Rohe towers of Lafayette Park and the 19th-Century steeple of St. Joseph Church. The dominant sound, at least on a Sunday, was bird songs.

The path now starts at Gratiot on the north, just south of Eastern Market, and terminates about a block north of Atwater Street. Plans call for the trail eventually to punch through the thicket to Tri-Centennial State Park on the waterfront and extend gradually north toward the New Center area.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/COL27/807170380/1081/rss23

The Humane Society of Washtenaw County is planning to build a new facility on five acres of University of Michigan property within the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor.  Ann Arbor News excerpts and link:

U-M regents were expected to vote today on a proposal that would lease about five acres of the northeast corner of Matthaei, adjacent to the current Humane Society facility, for 65 years.

The Humane Society would pay U-M $8,000 a year for the first 30 years, and then $1 a year for the remaining 35 years of the lease.

Matthaei, a popular nature area located at 1800 N. Dixboro Road, contains 320 acres of mostly wooded land; about 50 acres - with trails and a conservatory - are open to the public.

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/07/humane_society_may_build_at_ma.html

Mike Terrell of the Traverse City Record Eagle has a great column about the new guided bike tours at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in NW Lower Michigan:

“A few years ago the park service, following an old plan, tried to make Sleeping Bear a wilderness area, and that plan was not popular with local residents or park visitors,” he said. “They backed off that concept and are now preserving the old homesteads, clearing the fields and making it a historic district.

“With the new direction Sleeping Bear was one of the parks selected by the National Park Foundation and Ford Motor Company to promote alternative transportation methods within the park. That’s where I come in. We will be offering six guided bike tours every week through the middle of August. It’s free. Just show up for the ride at the designated time.”

This past week was the start of the tours, and both were well attended with 12 to 16 riders on each tour.

The first tour I rode on was through the 3,500-acre Port Oneida Rural Historic District, which, according to Locke, is the largest of its kind in the entire nation. You ride the backroads exploring the old farm homesteads and where Port Oneida once stood with its massive dock for refueling the steamers that plied Lake Michigan around the turn-of-the-last-century.

The second tour, which starts just south of Empire, includes backroads, farms, forests, ghost towns and even a little two-tracking. It’s also the longer tour, a little over 10 miles round-trip and took about two hours.

More here…

http://www.record-eagle.com/columnsblogs/local_story_199100113.html

Outside Magazine’s blog has a nice report on a growing hobby called ghost towning.  Basically, modern adventurers try to find the remains of old settlements for exploration.  There is probably a fairly significant subgroup of the outdoor adventure set who do this already.  Now the “hobby” has a web site.

Outside Mag excerpts:

Are you one of those who refuses to to ask directions? No, not the type that won’t stop because she won’t admit she doesn’t know where she’s going. This sort doesn’t ask because she’s interested to see where she’ll end up. If your personality couples that wanderlust with a historian’s curiosity, you might be a perfect candidate to join the special few called “ghost towners.”

According to an AP article: “Just as traditional outdoors enthusiasts enjoy mountaineering or hiking, and tech-minded gadget lovers enjoy geocaching, ghost towners have their own agenda: seeking out, documenting and photographing towns that one day will cease to exist.”

The thing that sets the hardcore ghost towners apart though is the willingness to go just about anywhere and brave nearly anything — running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, gas prices, snakes under abandoned general stores, and shotgun-wielding old cusses who aim to keep this a ghost town — to find that lonesome burg. The one that once acted as a railway terminus. The one that had a brief moment in the sun after a rambler struck silver or gold. Or the one that was, briefly, at a perfect spot on the crossroads between what was and what could’ve been.

http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2008/07/are-you-one-of.html

The link referred to in the post above brought me to an interesting list of Michigan ghost towns.  It even has an entry for Rawsonville in Wayne County.  According to the entry, there is an entire town at the bottom of Belleville Lake.  Interesting.  I’ll have to check that out.

http://ghosttowns.com/states/mi/mi.html

Note: The image above is from Fayette, MI.

The Toledo Botanical Garden is at once a beloved community institution and a struggling enviro-cultural destination.  I have always been impressed during visits that local arts and science groups have dedicated exhibition and meeting spaces on the grounds.  These always seem to be active.  However, the garden has been something of a fumbled football that finally landed in the well-managed hands of the Toledo Metroparks system.

The garden has big plans for the future, if today’s article in the Toledo Blade is any indication.  Excerpts and link below:

The master plan released today calls for many additions, including a glass-enclosed conservatory, new visitors and events centers, a learning village near Hawkins Elementary School, and a children’s garden.

It also envisions enhancement of existing gardens and structures, such as the greenhouses near the West Bancroft Street entrance.

The work is to be paid for with future donations and possible grants.

“We’re trying to put in place a plan to elevate this garden to a world-class garden, and to continue to be many things to many people,” Executive Director Janet Schroeder said.

Visitors young and old could stroll along a serpentine path that would be flanked in part by towering bamboo.

“There is going to be a tunnel of bamboo leading from the parking lot area, into the garden, to the transformative threshold,” Ms. Schroeder said.

While the notion of bamboo groves might conjure to mind warmer East Asian locales, Ms. Schroeder noted that hardier species of bamboo grow in temperate climates like northwest Ohio.

As a centerpiece, the master plan calls for construction of a large conservatory containing “designed landscape under glass.”

More here…

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/NEWS16/807170342/-1/RSS10

Wawa, Ontario is famous for a giant statue of a Canada goose along the Trans-Canada Highway.  It’s a fun roadside spectacle in an otherwise lonely and incredibly beautiful stretch of North America.  Wawa, of course, is also famous for its proximity to Lake Superior.  The Toronto Star has a nice review of some paddling options on the world’s greatest lake:

“It is big, powerful and has its own spirit,” says David Wells, owner of Rock Island Lodge and Naturally Superior Adventures.

Each summer, more paddlers choose to brave the waves on Lake Superior’s north shore.

“On Superior you can see the curve of the Earth,” Wells says. “It’s one of the few places in the world where you dive, swim down five feet and start drinking.”

Yet according to Wells, even with its 400-kilometre expanse, most people have never experienced the mystery and intrigue surrounding this impressive body of water, the world’s largest freshwater lake.

“We have made it our objective to really know Lake Superior paddling,” says Wells.

The “Big One” kayaking tour takes paddlers along the entire Canadian north shore of Lake Superior from Pigeon River, west of Thunder Bay to the Sault Ste. Marie locks.

Much more than a day at the lake, Wells says this experience is about forming bonds with people who also cherish the wide-open paddling experience.

A retired forester, Wells says his enjoyment of a 10-day kayaking adventure with his wife (also a forester) through this spectacular wilderness – most of Superior’s shoreline remains raw and untouched – was the inspiration behind Naturally Superior Adventures.

More here…

http://www.thestar.com/article/460609

Note: The image above comes from the wikimedia commons.  Apologies to residents of Wawa for the cliched reference to your town.  I just had to do it.

One of the more sweeping park projects in the state has been taking shape in Kent County.  The county has amassed almost 1,500 acres in hopes of creating a major regional recreational space.  The park’s master plan calls for 16 miles of new trail.  Grand Rapids Press excerpts and link here:

WALKER — Construction of the first of 16 miles of pedestrian trails in Millennium Park is scheduled to begin this summer, opening a new phase of recreational opportunities in the nearly 1,500-acre park.

The Kent County Commission’s Finance and Physical Resources Committee on Tuesday recommended the county spend nearly $5.5 million it has collected in private donations for constructing what will be 20 miles of paths in the park. Officials last year spent $1.1 million acquiring 111 acres in the park’s center, a key piece of property in completing plans for the Fred Meijer Millennium Park Trail Network.

“We’re going to start with the paved trails around the water, all around the lakes and where people park their cars,” Parks Director Roger Sabine said. “That’s about two miles all in one big loop.”

Recommended on Tuesday was completion of the park’s master plan for trails, which specifies about 13 miles of paved trails in addition to the four miles of paved Kent Trails already in the park. Another three miles of crushed stone nature trails also is planned, Sabine said.

Plans are to complete the first eight miles of paved pathway this year, with the rest built during the next two years, Sabine added. The full board is expected to approve the purchase at its July 24 meeting.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-42/1216214127253050.xml&coll=6

[Editorial Comments:  I love the enthusiasm that Kent County is showing in this project.  However, 17 miles of paved trail within a 1,500 acre space seems excessive.  Also, crushed stone nature trails are almost always a bad idea.  I remember trying to hike the Lakelands Trail when it first opened and I’d have stone dust up to my knees.  It was bad.  Dirt is the best surface for nature trails.]

One of the great conservation success stories of our time, the return of the American bald eagle, continued in Ohio this year.  A record number of nests were counted during Ohio’s statewide census.  Excerpts from Steve Pollick’s always-great Blade column:

State biologists tallied a record 184 nests in the state this year, the 21st consecutive year that the state’s breeding bald eagle population has increased.

Of those nests, 119 were known to be successful in producing young eagles. A determination of success could not be made at 16 other nests, and the remainder failed to produce young. Current reports from wildlife biologists and volunteer observers estimate a record total of 222 young eagles hatched in nests in 43 Ohio counties.

 At least 203 of these eaglets have already fledged, that is flown on their own. These young birds, in all brown plumage and lacking the distinctive white head and tail of mature adults, are approximately adult size, however. The prior record eaglet production was 205 from 110 nests, among 150 nests in all, in 2006.

 Most eagle nests in Ohio are located along the shores of Lake Erie, but some are well inland, including nests in Delaware, Hancock, Mercer and Wyandot counties. Counties with new nests in 2008 were Ashland (1), Belmont (1), Columbiana (1), Erie (2), Geauga (1), Highland (1), Lorain (1), Lucas (1), Mahoning (1), Ottawa (2), Pickaway (1), Richland (1), Ross (1), Sandusky (1), Trumbull (1), Tuscarawas (1), Wood (1), and Wyandot (2). A majority of the nests occur on private land.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080715/COLUMNIST22/807150341/-1/RSS06

For years, a portion of the trail system at Ingham County’s Lake Lansing Park North crossed land owned by a private development company.  The company was and is gracious in allowing residents to use the property.

Recently, concern developed that the company might develop the land.  So, residents raised an impressive sum.  The total was so impressive that now a deal appears to be forming to purchase the entire parcel.

WLNS TV excerpts and link:

Curt Munson, trail user: “In my mind it is the nicest piece of natural park land in all of the greater Lansing area, and it is just unbelievable.”

The land is so important to residents in the area that township board members decided to help buy it. They voted to pitch in $675,000. That money will come from a fund designed for situation just like this.

Mary Helmbrecht, Township Clerk: “We can’t fool around with this, this is one we need to preserve, so we just kind of went all out and said let’s go for it.”

And Ingham County is going for it too. The county will apply for a grant that could supply most of the money the services committee voted to supply $25,000 of it’s own money, even during very tight budget times.

Deb Nolan, County Commissioner: “It’s a win win for everyone, when in the worst of economic times, we can be purchasing a wonderful 120 acres that we will enjoy forever.”

It’s not a done deal yet. Next Tuesday the full board of commissioners will vote on the county’s portion of the funding. The grant application is due August 1st, and then it’s a waiting game to see if that grant is awarded.

http://www.wlns.com/global/story.asp?s=8682821

The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments is Greater Detroit’s regional planning organization.  It includes seven counties, including Monroe, Washtenaw and Wayne Counties.  SEMCOG often acts as a clearinghouse for federal and state funding.  SEMCOG also maintains long-range, multi-county plans for a variety of governmental functions.

Among these long-range plans are several devoted to regional transportation.  Currently, SEMCOG is taking input for a regional transportation plan that will cover the years 2010 through 2035.

So, here’s the deal.  If you want better public transportation or rail service, go to these meetings and express your ideas.  If you want good road shoulders for biking, more trails for walking or cycling, go to these meetings.  If you want to spend all transportation funding on freeways, maybe you should find something better to do on the meeting dates:)

Here is the schedule, followed by several media reports about the process:

– July 21, 4-7 p.m.: SEMCOG, 535 Griswold, Suite 300, Detroit.

– July 22, 4-7 p.m.: Southfield Public Library, 26300 Evergreen Road, Southfield.

– July 23, 9 a.m.-noon: Washtenaw Community College, Morris Lawrence Building, Ann Arbor.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20080715/REG/324947313/1069&rssfeed=RSS01

http://www.m-bike.org/blog/2008/07/15/speaking-up-for-better-bicycling-in-metro-detroit

http://www.semcog.org/Long-RangeTransportationPlan.aspx