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here are sometimes issues which divide our town. And there are sometimes opportunities to bring it together. This is one of the latter, and you can help.

The Oriental Parks and Rec Board is working to expand the bike paths in our part of Pamlico County. One of the first sections could be a pedestrian walkway and bicycle path that links the main part of Oriental with the White Farm Road/Dolphin Point area.

Roughly speaking, this would mean cutting through areas that are now wooded… as well as the marshy headwaters of Whittaker Creek. There, a pedestrian bridge would have to be built.

A rough sketch of one potential routing of the bike path and pedestrian walkway between Highway 55 and White Farm Road. Other potential routes could link to existing secondary streets so that a cyclist would not have to travel at all on the busier state highway.

Barbara Venturi of the Parks and Rec Board says no one trail has been decided upon. First, there are property owners to talk to and electric company officials to confer with about letting the town use the easement under the power lines. Plans are in the preliminary stage.

That said, there is a way you can help. Parks and Rec Board member Christie Foster is writing an application for a grant from Kodak. It’s for several thousand dollars which the town could use to draw up the plans. Foster says it would help if she could show community support for the bike trail.

Having those voices to back up the plan could also be of help in the fall when, Barbara Venturi says, the town can apply for a DOT grant for such a project. Actual realization of the pathway, she says, may be a few years off.

If you are interested in lending your voice to the effort, you may download the form (and perhaps circulate it among your friends and neighbors) and then drop it off at Town Hall in time for the June 15 deadline.

Click to download the form: Form to Support More Bike Paths.pdf

Then send the completed form to Town Hall, either walking it in or by mail:

Town of Oriental
PO Box 472
Oriental, NC 28571

Or email the signed, completed form to:
townhall@townoforiental.com

Posted Wednesday June 4, 2008 by Melinda Penkava