Pathfinders for the Greenways to begin work on Gladetown Loop Trail
VINTON – At the November 15 Town Council in the Neighborhood meeting in Vinton’s Gladetown community, Planning and Zoning Director Anita McMillan presented residents with an aerial map of the proposed Gladetown Loop Trail.
This trail will extend an existing footpath into a trail that will one day join up with the rest of the Roanoke Greenway system. The volunteer group, Midweek Crew of the Pathfinders for the Greenways, is scheduled to begin work on the trail this month.
The trail had its beginnings in October 2005, when Gladetown resident Joe Banks asked the Town of Vinton to consider building a trail from the Gladetown community to Niagara Road. Once this trail is completed, members of the Gladetown community, users of the Craig Avenue Recreational Center, and residents of adjoining subdivisions will be able to use the greenway not only for recreation, but also to walk to Lake Drive Shopping Center and eventually the Wolf Creek Greenway.
Site of the proposed Gladetown Loop Trail lin Vinton
Due to its own limited resources, the Town submitted a grant application to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation in 2007 for funding to complete the part of the proposed trail that is on Town-owned property. That property is used for a stormwater detention basin. When the grant was not approved, they decided to seek assistance from the Pathfinders for the Greenways to assist the Town in building the trail.
In siting the Gladetown Loop trail in the fall of 2009, the Town staff discovered that, in order to be out of the wet area, a portion of the remainder of the proposed pathway would have to be built on property owned by Woodland Place. Town Manager Chris Lawrence and Planning and Zoning Director McMillan met with Tommy and Karen Wood, owners of the Woodland Place property to ask for an easement. Instead of granting an easement, the Woods decided to donate a triangular portion of their property to the Town of Vinton for the trail.
Joe Banks (right) a resident of Vinton's Gladetown community, first proposed the Loop Trail in 2005. Here he speaks with Town Councilman Bobby Altice at the November 15 Council in the Neighborhood meeting at the Craig Avenue Recreation Center.
In addition to the Woods family and the Town of Vinton, the Gladetown Loop Trail will be a cooperative effort involving Roanoke County, the Roanoke Valley Greenway Commission, and Pathfinders for the Greenways. The proposed greenway constructed by the Pathfinders will be a Class C trail, a natural type surface, and hopefully will be completed in the spring of 2012.
By Debbie Adams
