Kettering plans to extend its bike path connections next year, adding a segment to provide a continuous trail from Woodman Drive, through the Miami Valley Research Park and intersecting with one from Centerville to Dayton.
The estimated 1,000-foot “missing-link type project” will be on Research Boulevard from Woodman to College Drive, which runs through the research park, Kettering Assistant City Manager Steve Bergstresser said.
“Although it’s short, it is a high-speed road,” he said of Research Boulevard. “It’s not really all that safe for bicyclists and pedestrians. What we’re trying to do is establish an off-street side path that would allow for safe passage of bicycles and pedestrians so they could get over to College Drive.”
College was built with an extra wide sidewalk “for the express purpose of being able to provide a pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists,” he added.
The project, estimated to cost $350,000, is “a continuous off-street bike trail” from the Woodman/Patterson Road intersection to Spaulding Road near the Beavercreek border, Bergstresser said.
Kettering’s cost will be offset by a $122,500 state grant, city records show. The work is expected to be in the spring, Bergstresser said.
The project is similar to a Stroop Road bike path link in Kettering finished earlier this year, he said. That one, Kettering officials have said, is less than a quarter mile, but essentially created an off-street trail from Centerville to Dayton.
The East Stroop trail runs from Dorothy Lane to Glengarry Drive, providing a 10-mile, more direct route through the south suburbs to Dayton, Kettering records show.
“They’re small connector pieces that provide for a continuous, wider bike path/sidewalk,” Bergstresser said. “So there’s continuity of path so people can get around easier.”
Now, the Kettering part of Route 9 runs from the Dayton corporation line (south of the Woodman/Rainier Drive intersection), through the research park and heads south on a County Line Road section of the path completed in 2022, Bergstresser said.
After crossing Dorothy Lane to Glengarry, the route goes down Stroop Road to Hempstead Station Drive, where it heads south, meeting the Hewitt Avenue connector into Centerville.