Edwardsburg held the Ontwa Township Trails stakeholder meeting Monday to discuss the needs and wants of future bike paths.

Officials in attendance were Don DeLong of the planning commission, township supervisor John Bossler, Joe Bellina of Cass County Road Commission, Sandra Seanor of the planning commission, Margie Allen of the Trails Team, Mike Mroczek of the township board, Gautam Mani of the Southwest Planning Commission, Darrell Harden of the Michigan Department of Transportation, Pat Bellaire of the village board and Leroy Krempec of the Cass Roads and Ontwa planner.

DeLong presented the audience with facts about the project and a survey and map to fill out and highlight bike path areas of interest.

According to DeLong’s presentation, the team was looking at “multi-use trails for any non-motorized transportation, providing safe paths between dense residential locations to the commercial businesses, churches, schools, the village, parks and other residential areas.”

The public had a good turn out and had a lot to say and contribute. Audience members expressed two main wants — somewhere safe yet challenging to recreationally cycle and somewhere for families to walk or ride.

Phase 1 has already been tested out with the Edwardsburg Sports Complex.

“The sports complex is all ready to put in 10-foot paths, scheduled to go in in 2017, I believe, from the sports complex out to Claire (Street),” DeLong said.

It was suggested by a cyclist in attendance that May Street might be a good option for a bicyclist path because of its challenging landscape. A bike path on U.S. 12 was also discussed but had both positives and negatives due to traffic, width of road and guardrails.

“I know we aren’t going to be able to please everybody and when somebody wants to put a four-foot stretch on the road and we gotta chop down your favorite tree that you planted with the kids. Oh boy, that’s tough. So there’s going to be those issues that are going to come up, I know. I want to look at those up front,” DeLong said about the challenges.

The options discussed and presented on the slideshow were “a shared road, the shoulder of the road or a 10-foot wide path alongside of the existing road.”

Harden, of the Michigan Department of Transportation, said that because of federal funding possibly going into this project that the paths or lanes would have to meet standards.

“American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) that organization sets the guidelines that are used for any federal aid project in the country for raising federal aid to fix the road. The design standards for bike riding are five feet. So if you were to get a transportation alternatives grant to develop bike lanes to put in three-foot bike lanes. Our response to you or anyone else would be ‘no you’re not.’”

Funding was another hot topic. The public was concerned about property taxes going up because of this project. Supervisor Bossler assured them that funding was already in the township budget to allocate to the project if needed. Funding would also come from support from the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission, Village of Edwardsburg, possible grants, sponsors, donations and partnerships, according to the presentation.

Federal and state funding would come from multiple sources — Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality, Transportation Alternatives Program, Safe Routes to School and the Surface Transportation Program, Transportation Economic Development Fund, DNR Land and Water Conservation Fund and the DNR Natural Resources Trust Fund, according to presentation.

From here, the planning team will review the audience surveys and maps and see what it is the community needs.

“Part of the Complete Streets mantra is to develop a right fit for each individual situation. You can’t assume that every road gets the same treatment,” Harden said.