The organization that aims to connect a hiking and biking trail across Washtenaw County has received a $3.5 million matching grant. It’s the largest gift theHuron Waterloo Pathways Initiative has ever received.
The grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundationwill be split up between two pathway projects.
$2 million will be used in Wayne County to build a 1.6-mile trail. It will run from east of Belleville, through Van Buren Park and connect to the Lower Huron Metropark.
$1.5 million will go toward completing the Washtenaw County Border-to-Border Trail, which will be a 45-mile path from Ypsilanti Township all the way to Stockbridge and the Pinckney area.
Kiff Hamp, the executive director of the Huron Waterloo Pathways Initiative, says the funding will go a long way.
“We generally use the rough rule that, again, varies wildly depending on the segment, but that about a million dollars is about a mile of trail.”
Hamp says the hope is to have the trail completed over the next four to five years.
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