Marcus Trails to Begin Construction

by Mari Radtke
The effort has been ongoing for a very long time. JEO Consulting Group got invovled with design work for the Marcus Trail project in the fall of 2020. Members of the Marcus Trails Committee had a route in mind. The trail begins at the City Park, winds around the swimming pool and through the Fairgrounds to Fenton Street. At Fenton and Locust Streets a walker, jogger or bicyclist can pick their path with the path deadending. Continuing east will take you the high school and on to the Marcus Golf Course. That route, too, has some additional paths that can be traveled, but leading no where, waiting for an opportunity to connect sometime, perhaps in the future.
JEO, at that point guided the final route to impose as little disruption to residents, traffic and utlities as possible. They advised on things like which side of the road, grading and were especially involved with safe crossings. They also helped assure that all federal requirements were met.
The trail, with a few exceptions is 8 feet wide. The exceptions are 12 feet in width.
Ten Point Construction of Denison, Iowa was the winning bidder. Bidding was conducted by Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT). IDOT administers the federal grant won for this project. Local dollars were also raised to make the miles long trail a reality. The winning bid is $7441,651.87.
The trail will be all concrete and all distrubed areas will be reseeded.
Project construction is expected to begin sometime this summer. The contact gives Ten Point, once the project begins, 55 working days to complete the project.