MAPS and Bicycling Trails

We got an expensive-looking mailer from the Yes For Maps Coalition telling us about the new healthier lifestyles we'll lead once MAPS is passed. (MAPS is a $700 million plan we'll be voting on on December 8th to keep in place the "temporary" 1 cent sales tax that was put in place to fund, well, I've forgotten what it was funding. But it's due to expire and now we'll get a chance to vote to keep it in place to fund a whole new shopping list of goodies we just can't live without.) They're as giddy as school girls about the possibility of whitewater-rafting and kayak course to be built on the murky and possibly-poisonous Oklahoma River but what got my attention was the proposed 57 miles of multi-purpose trails to be used for jogging, bicycling, rollerblading or just plain-vanilla walking. For $40 million, that comes to a little over $700,000 per mile. A bargain, I say!

Here's the map of the proposed route with the trails that are already up and running done in purple. I'm familiar with the trails around Lake Hefner - funded, I think, from prior MAPS projects - and they're quite nice and - hey, wait a minute. I'm not familiar with the trails already in place here on the humble south side. How could I have missed those?

Part of the trail looks to follow along Grand Boulevard. I'm dimly aware of something like that. But another part seems to follow Walker Avenue; that's our morning route into work and I know I haven't seen any trails along there. I could be mis-reading the map but I'll make an extra effort this morning to see if I've been missing something that's been under my nose for a long time.

Anyway, that's the latest onslaught from the pro-MAPS people. Every day seems to bring something new from them in the mail. I wonder what today will bring.