A major grant was recently announced to help pave the rest of the Raccoon River Valley Trail crossings in Greene and Guthrie counties.

Greene County Conservation Director Dan Towers says the two counties received a $150,000 matching grant from the Region XII Transportation Improvement Program.  Funds for the grant are from the Transportation Alternatives Program through the federal government.

Towers says the grant will be used to pave the final seven remaining road crossings and ten crossings in Guthrie County on the recreational trail.  He points out that getting grants like this is such a relief knowing that this project has the potential to be highly impactful.

“We don’t have a big enough operating expenditure budget to do these things so you rely on grants.  You think you’re chances are slim, but you got to try anyway.  So when word does come out that they’re approved, it is a big relief.”

Towers adds that the ultimate goal is to try and increase the amount of traffic on the trail to come off the loop and travel up to Greene County.

“Hopefully by having equal amenities on the trail, the amenities that Dallas County has, we can compete with them and if we can provide more things people to do up here, we get a big share of the traffic that they see down there.”

Funding won’t be available until 2018 and it is dependent upon available federal money.