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County-wide trails planned

Caroline Kingsley, The Park Record

A comprehensive trails plan is greater than the sum of its parts, according to a Summit County push to develop a County-Wide Trails Master Plan that combines the two sub-areas of the county.

"There’s the Snyderville Basin side, which is obviously well planned. The Eastern side, which includes all the cities, is less planned," Summit County Engineer Kent Wilkerson said. "The Eastern Summit County Transportation Master Plan (ETMP) and the County-Wide Trails Master Plan basically acknowledge what already exists out there on the Eastern side of the county. It’s kind of hard to know where you are going to go in the future if you don’t know where you are at now."

The Summit County Council is holding a work session Wednesday, Oct. 24 at the Summit County Courthouse on 60 North Main Street in Coalville to discuss the ESCTP, which fills in the gaps left by the Snyderville Basin Recreation District.

"The ETMP is basically what the Snyderville Basin Recreation District does," Wilkerson said. "And with the trails component of the plan, we’ve got it covered. We’ll let those two work independently, but together. Combine them and you’ve got a county-wide map."

The combined plans create a single vision of trails, he said. "At the end of the day, people want to be able to have a nice trail that connects every significant point in the county. In other words, being able to connect from Francis to Henefer."

Only two trans-jurisdiction trails currently exist: the Rail Trail and the Marion trail, which goes from Oakley to Kamas. "The Marion trail is the beginning of the foundation of the trail that gets you all the way along the corridor."

The plan not only addresses trail connectivity, but also addresses recreational trails. The Eastern Summit County Plan is inclusive of the Forest Service Area, which includes the largest portion of recreational trails in the county. "They are very important and we need to connect to them," Wilkerson said.


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