Taking a vacation from summer vacation tonight and sharing the progress on the Route 152 Trail from Line Creek Parkway over to US 169. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click the hyperlink in the previous sentence for the background and aerial map of the project. I've also been doing some minor posts on the Facebook page so if you haven't, go here and like it to stay updated. I've been quiet mostly because it's summer but also because my downstairs PC crashed and I recycled one from someone (thanks Mark) and installed a Ubuntu Linux system on it and have been enjoying playing with programs. I know how popular trail posts are because the first post on this project had a greater Facebook reach than my CostcoTM post.
Posts like this take some time to upload all the pictures and so I'm going to be short on verbiage. I have a bunch of pictures I took last Friday night and tonight so I'll just start at Line Creek Parkway and go east. This is looking northeast from the end of the Route 152 Trail on the east side of the parkway.
The trail follows the existing topography up to the south side of the 152 right of way where it turns and goes due east.
The nice thing about this stretch is there is a substantial buffer between the highway and trail and this is looking east.
The trail eventually reaches the Barry Heights neighborhood where it follows NW 88th Street.
It then winds up on the YMCA Challenger Park where we are grading down to provide more level space for the park and using the dirt to fill in and help the trail be more level and user friendly. I'm looking west from Old Stagecoach Road.
This looking west from the parking lot for the park.
Here I am standing north of the baseball field looking west. That sanitary manhole played a big role in the design of the trail through here. I was trying to figure out whether I should cut the trail into the sideslope of the baseball field or haul dirt in to bench the trail on the slope. I ended up deciding not to screw with the manhole and put the trail elevation at the top of the manhole.
This is looking east from the east edge of the park. There is a six foot by six foot concrete box culvert in the drainage draw which costs money but because it was so large, the trail is nice and not so hilly.
The trail follows a decent 5% slope from Platte Purchase down to the box culvert which is the view here. Route 152 is just to the right and Platte Purchase is behind me.
This is the connection to the west side of Platte Purchase. I'm looking north towards the 152 eastbound off ramp.
The section just east of Platte Purchase and I'm looking west. This section isn't going to have much grading because there is a 24" water main along here. That's what the blue flags and light blue markers denote.
We're walking west here halfway along the 152 on ramp which is to the right.
This is what it will look like east of the picture below. The trail through here will be nice and flat although someone is getting a little tired of walking.
There is some really nice black organic soil along the corridor sitting on top of heavy clay. The heavy clay doesn't drain and there was a mud pit which....
was the best part of the whole project for the boys.
The older two even figured out that if they worked together they could throw a humongous clod and get an humongous splat.
The mud pit was so much fun the six year old told me he wanted one of these in the backyard.....
This is looking southeast along the ramp from 152 east to 169 south. The trail is being cut down in this area to match future development plans. It also frees up dirt which is being hauled down to NW 88th Street for the future bridge crossing. Managing dirt is one way to save a ton of money on public projects and frees up those funds to build more cool stuff.
This shot is looking northwest. The cloverleaf ramp is to the right.
The site eventually levels out and the trail starts to follow 169 which is on the left. Someone thought corn stalks were funny.....
This is halfway between 152 and NW 88th Street with US 169 on the left. Note how we've left cleared trees in place for erosion control. We also have silt fence at the culvert areas. It doesn't make much sense to spend money putting up continuous silt fence along a soybean field.
This is looking north from where the trail turns from NW 88th Street and goes north and 169 is on the right side of the picture.
Now this post took about an hour and a half to upload all the pictures (free 5mbs fiber) and now I probably should turn the computer off and go to bed. It was kind of fun to take a break from late night trail designing to do some updating.
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