Committee recommends Linn County and Cedar Rapids Trails and Bikeways Plan to City Council

Haley (Community Development) presented the draft Linn County and Cedar Rapids Trails and Bikeways Plan and asked the Infrastructure Committee to recommend it to the City Council for consideration in April.

"The engagement was pretty comprehensive," Haley said, describing online surveys, open houses, pop‑ups and targeted stakeholder outreach with businesses, schools, adjacent municipalities and trail advocates. She summarized four key findings: connectivity is the highest priority; residents favor greater separation from traffic; local‑to‑regional connections rank highly; and additional trail amenities such as rest stations and drinking fountains are desired.

Haley explained the plan contains three broad goals, eight strategies and 34 action steps, each tied to a timeframe and implementation lead (city, county or partner organizations). The plan map distinguishes existing (solid) and future (dashed) facilities, separates regional and local projects to help with grant competitiveness, and shifts terminology from "on/off street" to "separated/unseparated" to reflect community comfort preferences.

Staff showed the plan’s prioritization: 25 high‑priority projects, 25 medium and 49 low priority items. Haley said staff aligned scoring with MPO long‑range transportation plan criteria to strengthen federal grant competitiveness and noted that draft plan documents and a project spreadsheet are available on the project website.

A committee member moved to recommend the plan and another seconded. The committee voted verbally in favor; the chair recorded the recommendation to the City Council. Haley said she expected council consideration in April.

The committee’s recommendation advances the draft plan to the City Council; the record shows a verbal aye vote but no roll‑call tally in the transcript.