CHICKASHA – A $1.8 million project to build a loop around Shannon Springs Park will be financed largely with a federal grant.
The City Council approved an agreement with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation for construction of a trail at Ninth Street and Ron Terry Drive.
The project will entail tearing out the existing asphalt trails in the 50-acre park and replacing them with concrete paths, and addressing erosion around the east and west sides of the park’s 4.5-acre pond, Parks and Recreation Director Spencer Winzenried said. A department master plan adopted 10 years ago noted the shoreline erosion and the “poor condition” of the park’s pedestrian/bicycle trails.
If enough money is available, additional lighting will be installed in the park, too, Winzenried said.
The work “probably will start next spring,” he told Southwest Ledger.
Besides the trails, Shannon Springs Park has a variety of other amenities, including a WPA-era amphitheater and a classic stone bridge, fishing, disc golf, public restrooms, a swimming pool and splash pad, benches and picnic tables, and a 230-foot-long, 4.5-foot wide, wooden bridge that spans the pond.
The park is popular with local citizens year-round, and attracts approximately 200,000 visitors for the annual Festival of Light that extends from the Saturday before Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve.
Chickasha qualified for a $1,801,355 Transportation Alternatives Program 80/20 federal grant that’s administered by ODOT.
TAP grants finance “smaller-scale projects aimed primarily at connectivity and active transportation, such as walking and cycling,” said T.J. Gerlach, public information officer in ODOT’s Strategic Communications division. Eligible projects include sidewalks, trails, safe routes to schools, streetscapes, and environmental or historical preservation, he said.
The grant will underwrite 80% of the project cost, or $1.44 million, including $195,000 for design fees and $1.246 million for construction expenses. The City of Chickasha will be responsible for the other 20%, or $360,271.
ODOT received 135 eligible applications for the latest round of TAP grants, Gerlach said.
Each application was scored by the Transportation Alternative Advisory Committee, which is comprised of 11 individuals “representing internal and external partners,” Gerlach said. Scoring criteria included planning and design, safety, public support, ability of the sponsor to deliver, “benefit to the transportation network, equity concerns and economic benefit to the population served,” he said.