Jackson County OKs funding for purchase of last link connecting Katy/Rock Island Trails to Kansas City - News - Examiner - Independence, MO
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Jackson County officials and others say the purchase of unused railroad tracks -- a process that has taken years -- will help transform the way the metro area’s public transit system develops. The immediate plan is for a bike trail, but officials hope someday to run commuter rail service through the same corridor.
“I am a very, very strong advocate of that project – that development – and it can’t happen fast enough for me,” Steve Klika, chairman of the Kansas City Area Transit Authority and vice chairman of the Johnson County Board of Commissioners, told Jackson County legislators Monday. . . .
“It’s great to see this day happening,” said Brent Hugh, executive director of the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Foundation.
He said connecting the Katy Trail to Kansas City has been the group’s top priority for years. That trail, which runs east-west across most of the state, is being pushed north from Windsor to Pleasant Hill, and the new Jackson County trail would come out within a few miles of that Pleasant Hill trailhead.
There’s more: The popular Little Blue Trace Trail runs up the Little Blue River valley from Blue Mills Road to Lee’s Summit Road just south of Independence, and it’s being extended farther south. Some day, officials say, that trail would run to the Interstate 470/View High Drive area in Lee’s Summit – where Rock Island tracks also pass. So rider on either county trail would be able to roll on and pick up the Katy, which runs to the St. Louis area.
Hugh said that’s important for Missouri tourism.
“The longer the trail, the farther people will travel to visit it,” he said.
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