THE PLAINS, Ohio – Over a dozen local residents gathered at The Plains branch of the Athens County Public Library on April 30 to see project maps and hear from local officials about a shared-use path which will connect the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway with SR 682.
“[The meeting] was just to help educate the community about the project,” said Athens County Planner Connor LaVelle. “We want to make sure that [residents are] kept up to date, that they’re aware of what the project is and where it’s at.”
The project will connect the sidewalk at The Plains United Methodist Church to Athens High School. The path will then loop around the high school tennis courts before connecting with the existing spur of the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway.
The shared-use path will be 10 feet wide at its largest point and will narrow down to rejoin the existing sidewalk and bike trail. LaVelle told the Independent that construction is expected to start in summer 2027 and will hopefully be done by that fall, although weather and other factors may result in delays.
In total, the project is expected to cost about $1.7 million, but Athens Township and the Athens County Commissioners will cover only $35,093 of the cost. The two governments have agreed to split that cost, with the rest of the money coming from a mixture of state and federal programs, including the Safe Routes to Schools program.
“[The Ohio Department of Transportation] was accepting these grants for the and there were also some other ODOT grants,” Ted Linscott, an Athens Township Trustee, said. “We got together with Jeff Maiden, the county engineer, and the county commissioners in Athens Township. We put a committee together, just an ad hoc committee, between the three agencies and have been working together ever since.”
In addition to the shared-use path, the project will also move utility lines underground, update the storm sewer system and fix drainage issues along Johnson Road. Fixing these drainage issues will increase the path’s usable life.
“Water drainage in The Plains has always been a challenge ever since I’ve been a trustee,” Linscott said. “So this is going to get a nice new storm drain down through there that leads to the river and the landowners are going to get drainage in their front yards to be able to get water going towards the river.”
Linscott believes that the connection to the bike trail will bring in more customers for businesses in the area.
“There’s not a doubt in my mind that they’re going to get increased traffic, because there’s going to be a reason for folks on the bike path to come up this way,” Linscott said.
Barbara Lindsay, who lives at the Wyngate along Johnson Road, told the Independent that she is glad that local officials are working to address the dangers faced by pedestrians walking and biking down the road.
“A lot of times somebody gets killed and we go ‘we have to do something,’” Lindsay said. “But [local officials] are seeing ahead of time the possibility [that] it could be a problem, and they’re working on it proactively, which is good.”
Lindsay, who is visually impaired, brought up concerns during the meeting about the lip of the curb for the shared-use path, noting that it may pose a hazard for residents who use canes to navigate.
“I’m more concerned for my other friend who’s blind because she uses a cane and [a curb is] easy to miss,” Lindsay said. “My dog won’t miss a curb.”
LaVelle told the Independent that he takes Lindsay’s concerns seriously and will look into the matter.
Both local officials and residents who attended the meeting praised the project as a sign of things to come for The Plains, which was one of the few Athens County communities to grow in the latest census.
“This is a good opportunity to show how things can happen in The Plains with partnership between the county, the township and ODOT,” LaVelle said.
