Video Update: Bicentennial Bonds

Each week, Mayor Hamilton and Deputy Mayor Griffin provide video updates on recent news and key initiatives. In today's video, Mayor Hamilton discusses the Bicentennial Bonds and the Trees and Trails Project with Operations and Development Division Director for Bloomington Parks and Recreation Tim Street. Access all of the weekly video updates at bloomington.in.gov/videoupdates.

Transcript

Mayor John Hamilton:

Hi, I'm Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton, and I'm here with Parks employee Tim Street, one of our directors, and we want to update you on the bicentennial bonds. You may remember back in 2018 as the city's bicentennial, our city council, and the administration supported a $10 million gift to the future. So this is just a little update on how we're doing. We called it Trees and Trails. And Tim, you're new since then I know. You weren't there at the very beginning.

Tim Street:

Right.

Mayor John Hamilton:

But can you update me? And there may be a couple of other things with that, but tell me where we are.

Tim Street:

Sure. Well, there were a variety of projects, some with parks, some with other departments. There were the alley improvements that were mostly completed by Public Works. Those happened.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Right. Downtown alleys.

Tim Street:

The downtown alleys.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Yep. Right.

Tim Street:

We've got the gateway improvements that we are currently looking at. Two sites, Miller Showers Park and the pedestrian bridge over 46 on the northwest side of town.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Right. Those are kind of coming, but the Trees in the Trails were a big part of this so tell us where we are with the trees.

Tim Street:

Sure. Well, with trees, we're in our bicentennial planting round one right now. 300 trees going in. That will resume probably in the next two weeks. We'll see trees going back into the ground. And then we'll also be working on future rounds coming up and targeting more neighborhoods and more places to get trees in the ground.

Mayor John Hamilton:

So that's great. That's just kind of keeping up the tree city and building the tree canopy and all and that was part of our gift. And then we also had the trails and there were four big trails that we committed to working on and tell us where we are on those.

Tim Street:

That's right. So the first one was the seven line, and that was done primarily through the engineering department. We know that's been completed and opened.

Mayor John Hamilton:

So that runs from B-Line East all the way onto the IU campus basically.

Tim Street:

Correct.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Then just for folks to know, we hope that'll actually go all the way out to 446, but the bicentennial part, we've finished and it's open, right?

Tim Street:

Yep. That's correct.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Okay. Great.

Tim Street:

And then we've got the Cascades.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Yep. Our first park, our oldest park.

Tim Street:

100 years old, that's right. We just celebrated the centennial down there. We were able to open and dedicate the section of trail we were able to build with the funds down there.

Mayor John Hamilton:

And we've enhanced that. If you haven't been there, it's an amazing place to visit now. It's beautiful. There's a lot of really cool stuff down there. So that was number two. Number three?

Tim Street:

Number three is the Griffy Loop Trail

Mayor John Hamilton:

At Griffy Lake.

Tim Street:

... which we dedicated the first phase of that project, which was building the causeway and separated trail on the east side of the lake along Headley Road.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Right. Beautiful. That's also worth a visit.

Tim Street:

It's going to break down into two more phases to get that project done. The second phase is going to be the trail crossing of the Griffy Dam.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Okay. But you're not supposed to cross right now.

Tim Street:

Technically, right. Correct.

Mayor John Hamilton:

But we're going to open it up.

Tim Street:

We're going to make it improved. We're going to make it safe.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Nice.

Tim Street:

We're going to be working on that in early 2023, getting that out to bid.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Great.

Tim Street:

And then the third phase will be the actual rest of the trail improvements.

Mayor John Hamilton:

On the south.

Tim Street:

South and north shore.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Both. So we're going to end with this, and I just love this too, that you'll be able to walk all the way around the lake over the dam, over the causeway. Beautiful. Six, how long?

Tim Street:

It'll be probably just under six miles.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Six-mile loop.

Tim Street:

As a loop trail.

Mayor John Hamilton:

I'm really excited about that. That's cool.

Tim Street:

We hope to have those trail improvements targeted for completion in 2023.

Mayor John Hamilton:

So done next year.

Tim Street:

We hope so. It could bleed into the next year a little bit but we hoping for 2023.

Mayor John Hamilton:

All right. All right. We won't hold you to it. All right. And then the last one is the latest to come. Tell us about the fourth one.

Tim Street:

The fourth one is, we're calling it the RCA Trail, which is going along the power lines over there. There may be an official name

Mayor John Hamilton:

West of Switchyard?

Tim Street:

By Switchyard, yes. So running west from Switchyard, there's a power line easement that goes west all the way to Weimer Road. Right now we're looking at a phase one with bicentennial funds that would connect to RCA Park.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Nice.

Tim Street:

In the future, we hope to extend that even farther over out towards Weimer Road and maybe connect to some of the new neighborhoods being built.

Mayor John Hamilton:

Near Twin Lakes, it gets out. I mean, it eventually can, right?

Tim Street:

Eventually, it gets to Weimer Road, and you could go north to Twin Lakes. We hope to connect it to those neighborhoods developing to the west of Summit Elementary to create a collector to get people over to Switchyard Park to the core B-Line Trail.

Mayor John Hamilton:

So that's in the planning stages?

Tim Street:

That's in the planning stage, yeah.

Mayor John Hamilton:

We have the funding waiting for it.

Tim Street:

We have the funding waiting. We're working through a lot of logistics with Duke Energy. They're doing a lot of infrastructure improvements.

Mayor John Hamilton:

You mean trails don't just happen when we say, "Get it done in six months or something"?

Tim Street:

I wish they could.

Mayor John Hamilton:

All right. Well, listen, Tim, thank you so much. I'm really proud of this community for putting $10 million into the future as our bicentennial gift, which we did. Thanks for the update. There's more you can see on the screen to get more information about it if you want. And good luck, keep plugging, and thanks for helping make it come to reality.

Tim Street:

Thank you.

Click here to learn more about the Bicentennial Bond Tree Planting Project.