County staff outline update to Non-Motorized Trails Master Plan, set compressed notice and hearing timeline

Grand County Active Trails and Transportation on Monday presented a near-final draft of the county's Non-Motorized Trails Master Plan and asked the Planning Commission to focus review on three items: the trail network proposals, goals and strategies, and updated road-construction standards that would guide implementation.

The presentation was led by Katie, the GCAT project coordinator, who said the plan was originally written in 2005, updated in 2011 and "is pretty out of date." She said the update was paid for by a UDOT TPA (technical planning assistance) grant totaling $120,000 with matching funds from the city, and Alta Planning and Design was hired as consultant.

Katie described a wide outreach effort that included a technical advisory committee with city and county staff, Trail Mix and UDOT; stakeholder meetings for "vulnerable street users" and businesses; visioning events with mapping exercises; an online comment map; and a summer survey that yielded 439 responses. "We learned a lot from [the comment map] and a lot of our recommendations were actually based on that," she said.

The draft combines recreational soft-surface trails and active-transportation recommendations into a countywide network and proposes typologies (shared-use paths, buffered or protected bike lanes, on-street facilities) matched to corridors. Alta included a safety and crash analysis and used trail-counter data from the BLM and U.S. Forest Service to inform priorities.

Implementation elements in the draft include: a proposed update to county road-construction standards with a matrix for roads on the active-transportation network, maintenance guidance (for example, winter snow removal on shared-use paths), acquisition and easement strategies for private property, program recommendations (school bike-bus, complete-streets), and a list of potential funding sources. Katie said the road-standards matrix is intended to make it easier for roads crews and contractors to build for active-transportation when a corridor is designated.

On next steps, Katie warned the commission the schedule is compressed: the city planning commission needs a noticed version by Thursday (the 14th) so the city can post by Friday; she proposed a planning commission public hearing date on the 8th and asked that the county and city use the same draft so both bodies review the same redline. Staff emphasized that any draft the commission plans to deliberate on must be complete before posting deadlines so the public gets proper notice.

The item was presented for information; commissioners were asked to submit red-line comments via the public comment tools provided and to reserve substantive deliberation for the formal public hearing.

The commission did not take formal action on the plan at this meeting; staff indicated the matter will return for public hearing. The presentation materials and near-final draft will be posted to the county website per the notice schedule.