Riverside work that grew from trail project to include street and drainage redo finished

Muncie Star Press
Updated ·2 min read

MUNCIE, Ind. − Muncie Delaware County Economic Alliance announced this week that the new trail along Riverside Avenue between Tillotson Avenue and Morrison Road is now complete and adds to community efforts in Muncie and Delaware County to improve pedestrian connectivity.

Muncie Mayor Dan Ridenour, with scissors, and Elizabeth Rowray, President of the Delaware Advancement Corporation, right of Ridenour, are among local officials who cut the ribbon in November, celebrating the completion the Riverside trail project. The project grew into a repaving of the westside street and drainage repair for the residential area.
Muncie Mayor Dan Ridenour, with scissors, and Elizabeth Rowray, President of the Delaware Advancement Corporation, right of Ridenour, are among local officials who cut the ribbon in November, celebrating the completion the Riverside trail project. The project grew into a repaving of the westside street and drainage repair for the residential area.

A ribbon cutting was held in November at the Westminster Presbyterian Church.

The 1.2-mile-long trail and reconstruction of Riverside Avenue was born out of a 2019 Indiana DNR Next Level Trails grant awarded to the Delaware Advancement Corp. Through public input and willing partners, the project increased in scope to include storm water improvements, reconstruction of Riverside Avenue, and the planting of over 80 native trees that will help diversify and strengthen the city’s tree canopy.

“After careful planning, based primarily on the public input meetings in 2019, a broad community partnership formed to address stormwater issues, automobile travel speeds, and traffic back-up: all concerns of the public, that further enhance the pedestrian trail being built along Riverside Avenue,” said Elizabeth Rowray, president of the DAC.

The trail addition connects the Morrison Road Trail to Tillotson Avenue/Ball State University and includes a new sidewalk connection to the Catalina Swim Club on Clarkdale Avenue.

The total investment in the pedestrian, vehicular, and storm water improvements came in just shy of $4 million dollars, with 98% of the funding originating from federal, state, and local grants.

DAC was awarded an Indiana Department of Natural Resources Next Level Trail Grant, an East Central Indiana Regional Development Authority trail grant out of its funding from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation’s Regional Cities Initiative, and a Ball Brothers Foundation grant to plant native trees. The Muncie Sanitary District is funding the storm water and road improvements through the American Recovery Plan.

“This is Muncie at its best," Rowray said. "We are making quality of place improvements in an area of town where owner-occupied housing demand is high, an area lacking in safe pedestrian travel routes. We are closing gaps in Muncie’s incredible existing trail network. We are using limited local tax dollars to leverage state and federal financial resources. All of this is in response to public input gathered at the onset of the trail project.”

While not directly tied to the trail project, the City of Muncie used an INDOT Community Crossings grant to cover road improvements at the Riverside and Jackson Street intersection, including a road diet at the Jackson-Riverside intersection that will help slow the travel speeds of vehicles along Jackson Street.

FlatLand Resources and IXOYE Engineering provided project management and design services for the projects, with 3D Company and E&B Paving being the primary contractors for the trail and road projects, respectively.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Four-year effort to connect westside trail to BSU celebrated