Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The proposal to develop a bike trail between Colton and Uniontown is gaining momentum with an agreement between the Uniontown Community Development Association and WSU’s Rural Communities Design Initiative.
The concept was suggested by several people in surveys sent out to Colton and Uniontown residents earlier this year.
Since then, Uniontown representatives have had preliminary discussions with the State of Washington about the possibility of developing a trail along the right of way of Highway 195.
The state owns a 100-foot wide strip right-of-way.
“There’s plenty of room to do it,” said Dale Miller, President of the Uniontown Community Development Association (UCDA). “But it’s gonna take some work to figure out how it can be done and everybody feel like its safe and it works.”
Part of this work will be taken on this fall by a group of landscape architecture students at WSU.
They will study the proposal and provide illustrations and planning drawings, as part of a studio class.
“It’s a great way for students to work with communities and an actual client per se,” said Kathleen Ryan, Assistant Professor of Interior Design, in the School of Design and Construction. Ryan has led students in the Rural Communities Design Initiative for several years.
The landscape architecture students will do their work on the Colton-Uniontown bike trail project in the first semester of the coming school year.
When it’s complete, they will present drawings to the UCDA to use for grant fund applications and fundraising campaigns.
“It’s on our list of dreams,” Miller noted.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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