Over the last several years, proponents of the Iowa River’s Edge Trail (IRET) have experienced stops, starts, successes and shortcomings in their quest to secure funding for the paving of 34 miles of former rail lining between Marshalltown and Steamboat Rock. Earlier this week, TRAILS Inc. President and At-Large Marshalltown City Councilor Jeff Schneider shared that the Marshall County portion of the trail has been recommended for a $2 million Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside (TASA) grant that would essentially fund the work on all of the remaining bridges, which are numbered 6-9, between Marshalltown and Albion.

Of the five applications recommended for funding, the project received the highest overall score with a 113, and a separate application to fund the paving of the same trail in Hardin County from Gifford to Union has also been recommended for a $1,185,600 award. The official award should come within the next month, according to Schneider.

“We’re very happy to be the top scoring application. It means our project is very (high) quality,” he said. “The trail project in general is going to be receiving about $3.185 million (including Hardin County), and so we’ll meet in the middle, hopefully.”

He is also optimistic that the award will put the project in a better position for a Destination Iowa grant like the ones the Linn Creek District has already received in Marshalltown.

“We’ll apply for that, and (by) amplifying these dollars, we should be able to get all the bridges and paving done to Albion and maybe even beyond,” Schneider said. “We’ll also be going back to the county for a little bit of money as well because, I mean, the entire project, we need to get to the Marshall County/Hardin County border.”

With bids generally moving back in a more favorable direction at the city level, Schneider is hopeful about the possibility of getting more “bang for their buck” as well. Paving of the trail currently ends at the Marshalltown city limits with rough gravel between there and Albion, but four of the bridges numbered 2-5 are already set to be replaced this winter. For rider and pedestrian safety, the trail will run under Highway 330, Schneider noted.

Based on current estimates, the project would need about $6 million total for all of the work involved in getting the trail paved and bridges rehabilitated between Marshalltown and Albion and another $3 million to reach the Hardin County line from there.

“After we get to Albion, we can do it in a piecemeal fashion. Getting to Albion is kind of a big bang. We have to do all the bridges (and) paving more or less at once because it’s really tough to get grant funding to get further into a wetland with no real exit, and we think that this plus a little bit more will get us to Albion in a fairly short amount of time,” Schneider said. “It seems like the powers that be at the state are seeing the importance of this trail considering it’s on two future nationwide rail-trails (and) just the overall general popularity of trails for walkers and bikers and everybody else who wants to get outside. Like we’ve talked about before, this trail will be as beautiful as any in the state. It’s in a wetlands. It’s just kind of primitive Iowa landscape that not everybody gets to experience.”

The trail has also received $650,000 in Transportation Alternative Program (TAP) money already this year, and Schneider believes that some of the money the city received from Union Pacific for shutting down the crossing at 2nd Street will go toward the in-town portion of the trail and connect the Iowa River’s Edge Trail to the trailhead via the 6th Street Trail to the Linn Creek Trail system. There are also remaining pledges from the unsuccessful federal ATIIP grant and cash on hand to be put toward the matching portions of the project, and they still plan to request up to $1 million from the county after previously putting that ask on hold.

“The stars are aligning, and if everything goes our way, we apply for Destination Iowa (and) we get awarded, we will have a full trail to Albion within three years or less,” Schneider said. “Something you always have to keep in mind is (that) there’s a lot of people at the table here, a lot of organizations, state organizations. Things don’t always go as planned. It’s not necessarily anybody’s fault, but these projects do take longer. But this is about as good of an opportunity as we’ve had to get some really meaningful progress.”

Within the city limits, Schneider has enjoyed watching the progress on the trailhead and the Emerson Bridge, and he expects both projects to wrap up by Christmas. And in Albion, Mayor Pat Hemming remains a strong proponent of the IRET and the development it could bring to his small community — citing the impact a similar trail had in his hometown of Woodward.

“I think it would be a big improvement or a good catalyst for a restaurant startup. This town hasn’t had a restaurant — a designated restaurant, we do have a tavern that does sell sandwiches and things — but for a restaurant, it would be big,” Hemming said. “Growing up in a small town that was affected by a bike trail, I see growth with business. The more people you have in town, it’s going to attract business, and with the bike trail and what Raymon Donco has done down there, there are facilities set up. (Larry Raymon) did that knowing that the bike trail could be passing through there. It’s just gonna be a good thing for this town.”

At the moment, most of the city budget in Albion is tied up in a sewer project, but he believes the potential growth as a result of the trail would generate more tax revenue to help pay for infrastructure projects in the future.

“All I can say is for Albion to grow, we need to think big. I think we can think of ways that we can improve this community. It’s a good community. There are good people, and I really want to just see growth,” Hemming said.

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Contact Robert Maharry at

641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.