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Construction anticipated to connect lakeshore and Grand Rapids bike trails

It will connect Muskegon's two longest bike trails.

MUSKEGON, Mich. — The City of Muskegon is planning to connect Muskegon's two largest bike trails. Construction will begin in 2021.  

The three-quarters of a mile long connection that connects the Musketawa Trail and the Laketon Trails is leaving bikers, "excited," like Fred McFarren. 

"It's just so much better than riding on the road, at my age anyway," McFarren said. 

Muskegon's Public Works Department is expected to begin planning, engineering work, and start the process of obtaining easements later this year.

"It will be a paved asphalt path, ten foot wide, with clear space on either side of it," Leo Evans, the Muskegon Director of Public Work said. 

"A large part of the three-quarter mile segment will actually be a boardwalk to get through the wetlands," Evans said. 

The $700,000 to $800,000 project will be paid for with federal transportation alternative funds, matching funds from the City of Muskegon, and a grant from the DNR Recreation Trails Program.

When completed, phase three of the Musketawa bike trail connector will be less than one mile in length. But that short connection is needed to link the bike trail that goes east from Muskegon into Grand Rapids, and one that leaves Muskegon to the north and ends in Hart in Oceana County.

It will provide a dedicated off-street connection between trail systems where only an on street connector route currently exists.  

The connection will provide vastly improved access and complete the last link between the city of Muskegon and the city of Grand Rapids

The Musketawa Bike trial is a National Recreation Trail. It ends near the intersection of Black Creek Drive and Olthoff Drive. 

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