Bike path gains steam

A bicycle and pedestrian trail around Bigfork has recently taken one step closer to fruition.

Members of the Bigfork Rotary Club are spearheading an effort to build what member Renny Johnson calls “A Ring around Bigfork,” a path system between Bigfork and Woods Bay, Bigfork and Swan River Elementary, and Bigfork to the north of town to Montana Highway 83. Johnson this week said Flathead County planners recently sent out letters to neighboring landowners on the trail on Swan River Road enquiring about easements on their property to build a portion of the trail.

The first portion of the path to be worked on next spring, Johnson said, will be a .5-mile portion south of Swan River Elementary on Swan River Road. Another segment, about a half mile, will follow, stretching down to Williams Lane on Swan River Road.

The Bigfork Rotary Club has about $300,000 available to build the first portions of the trail, which was laid out in a Flathead County trails plan but mostly abandoned by the county commissioners in 2010. Johnson and other Bigfork Rotary Club members have been pushing the county to revisit the planning document and build the trail.

Johnson said the first half-mile of trail could be built in the spring, depending on easement negotiations. “We don’t know how far we’re going to go, because it all depends on easement negotiations,” he said. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s going to take a long time. But we need to have the whole community support it and engaged.”

Johnson said the Rotary Club has a vision to provide safe pedestrian and bicycle traffic around Bigfork.

“This was not a Bigfork plan originally,” he said. “If you look at the county trail plan, it was already there. Our job is to make sure this trail plan keeps moving forward. It’s good for the whole valley.”