The Eastern Trail is coming to Saco!

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A Newsletter by the City of Saco, Maine	August, 2009	Return to newsletter index

After ten years of planning, organizing support, and pursuing funding, preliminary design of the 4.5 mile Saco to OOB segment is ongoing this summer. This portion of the ET will run from Milliken Mills Road in OOB south to the Thornton Academy campus, and include a bicycle and pedestrian bridge over Route One near Goosefare Brook.

A completed section of the Eastern Trail in Old Orchard Beach.

Survey work and wetlands identification, while slowed substantially by the poor summer weather, are nearly complete. Upon completion of the preliminary plan, a public hearing will be held in the fall. Completion of final design work will occur over the winter, the project will go out to bid in the spring, and trail work should go forward in 2010.

On other fronts, bids will be opened for the 6.2 mile section of trail in Biddeford, Arundel and Kennebunk in late August, and construction will begin in October. Permitting is complete with the individual communities, the Maine DEP and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The most complicated portions of this project - bridges over the Kennebunk River and the Maine Turnpike - will likely be constructed in 2010, with the latter scheduled for completion in 2011. In addition to all this trail design and construction work are efforts that include web-based interactive mapping, a "user's manual" for ET communities, and aiding the Maine DOT in the development of new and improved signage. And, watch for a bicycle tourism/economic development conference in Spring 2011.

Call 284-9260 for more information, or visit the ETA's new and improved website at www.easterntrail.org.