Happy Trails
Two City parks get 4,500 more feet of multi-use paths
The pathway for Pickerington walkers, runners and bikers to enjoy the beauty of Sycamore Creek and Victory parks will be widened, expanded and paved this year.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has awarded the City of Pickerington a $150,000 grant to expand and build new multi-use trails within Sycamore Creek Park.
The nearly 57-acre park already has several walking trails. Funds from the state will add 4,500 more feet of paved multi-use trails in the park, around the entire pond and a connector trail to Lockville Road to link the park with the nearly 6-acre Victory Park.
It is important to have a variety of bike path options that connect throughout the City, said Pickerington Parks and Recreation Director Rebecca Medinger.
“The community will be able to start at one end of the park and loop around several areas within the park, rather than having to start at one end and ending at the other with no way to connect back,” Medinger said. “This is also an opportunity to showcase different areas of the park that people may not know we have, like access to the other side of the pond.”
The parks are widely used year-round, Medinger said, and the 10-foot pathways will encourage people to enjoy them even more.
“We need to keep up with the change of activity that the community is interested in,” she said. “Bike paths are huge right now throughout the country, as is getting people outdoors to be active.”
Pickerington City Engineer Scott Tourville said the work on the trails will begin once the grant is authorized in late summer or early fall. While work is expected to be finished this fall, some work may have to be finished in the spring of 2017.
