An opposition petition organized by residents along Meadowlark Lane will be presented to the mayor and Village Council at their April 12 meeting.

The project has been funded with $214,000 through the Mid Region Council of Governments, although it requires local matching funds, also available from earlier state appropriations.

The project has been planned for at least three years. (See Corrales Comment series on trails, starting with Vol. XXVIII, No.18, November 7, 2009  “First Steps to Implement Village-wide Trails Plan”)

Opposition apparently arose after Mayor Phil Gasteyer called a neighborhood meeting to discuss the project, as he said he does with other roadway projects. He said several residents were upset that they hadn’t known of the project earlier.

At the August 25, 2009 council meeting a resolution was approved to design and build bike lanes and a five-foot wide compacted earth trail along upper West Meadowlark.

The resolution stated, “The Village and Rio Rancho have submitted a request for ‘West Meadowlark Bike Trail’ funding from the Mid-Region Metropolitan Planning Organization under its TIP program, which, if granted, will require a local matching share of 25 percent of costs.” It states that the Village Engineer had determined that sufficient right-of-way exists along upper West Meadowlark “for a widened street surface to accommodate bike lanes with a parallel compacted earthen trail at a cost which would require a Village share of $53,000.”

A Meadowlark resident, Danny Cox, attended the August 2009 meeting and spoke in favor of the project as long as the design included clear distinction between the driving lanes and the bike lanes or trail. He said he was concerned that the physical barrier between driving lanes and bike lanes or trail be adequate to deter drivers from using those and endangering cyclists, riders or pedestrians. 

Cox also sought  assurances that the project would not exacerbate drainage problems for adjacent homeowners.

Last spring the proposed bike paths leading to Rio Rancho were postponed due to withdrawn funding from Santa Fe. Before Santa Fe began pulling back appropriations late last year, Village officials had expected to spend $53,000 in already-secured funds for its share of the  cost of the project.

“We’re going to pause in trying to pursue that project,” the mayor said a year ago. “But we haven’t abandoned it.” He noted at the time that it looked like the City of Rio Rancho was also having trouble coming up with its funds for the  inter-municipal project.

But at the end of last year, the mayor was confident he would get the bike paths built during 2011.  “We have now received a counter-signed grant from Santa Fe which will allow us to use re-directed money left over from constructing Loma Larga, at long last, as our local match for the federal money available for the bike path,

“So I anticipate we will begin design of the bike path soon, and get the bike trail up Meadowlark constructed in 2011.”