North Platte Trails Network flagging area for new trail

A group in North Platte is hoping to have a new trail to connect two existing trails.

The North Platte Trails Network met Wednesday to flag and mark off the centerline of a new area they are working to put a trail on West State Farm Road.

In addition to placing the flags, they also visited with property owners in the area to get an idea of their thoughts towards the trail.

Trail Network Member Anne Dimmitt said this trail will add safety for people like runners, bikers or students who use this road.

"Since the city did Buffalo and the trail comes out to where it is now at West State Farm and then it connects over to the university's property, " said Dimmett, "There is no trail here this is a busy county road as you can hear the cars going by and there’s a lot of people that live out here to try and use this section and we’ve been trying to find a safe route for them to connect to the two."

Dimmitt said their hope is to have the trail completed by the end of this year.

"The goal would be ultimately to have this footprint in place by the end of the year and this is also a really good opportunity for the neighbors to come to us to ask questions if they have suggestions or comments, we want them to feel like they can come and visit with us," said Dimmett.

She said it's been a long time in the making.

"There’s a lot of schools down here and there’s really not a safe way for people to get to the existing trails on any given day, there’s people out here hiking biking and running and we just want to be able to safely connect our trails," said Dimmett "The North Platte Trails Network wants to find these holes in our trails, we have great trails, but we need to fill in the key pieces and this will be huge it’s been going on for the last 20 years so if we could accomplish this this will be wonderful it will connect a route that will be greater than either six or 8 miles so it’ll give us a lot more opportunities to get out of the house."

The trail would cover half a mile connecting the Buffalo Bill Trail to the UNL West Central Research and Extension Center property.