Oceanside-Netarts Mixed Use Path
This team's mission is to work with county and state road agencies to design, develop and implement a mixed use walking/cycling path connecting Netarts, Oceanside, and the lighthouse. So far the team is very small, officially only having one Oceanside community member (Gill Wiggin) but in the last several weeks I have reached out to a few locals whose knowledge I believe will be indispensable in this project and am waiting on official answers.
With the help of OAP a meeting was held in December that included Chris Laity of the Tillamook Country roads department and Caroline Crisp from ODOT. The goal of the meeting was to help us get started on the project, hopefully getting it included in the next Transportation System Plan(TSP) for the county. They offered great advice and some useful next steps, these included:
- Putting together a map of potential routes, including the pros/cons of each
- Proximity to the highway will make more grants available
- Community involvement and support will be crucial, this includes participating in public comment periods for the TSP
- Think big picture to identify opportunities and constraints
Following their advice we met to start mapping potential routes along with strengths and weaknesses of each. While keeping the route in the public-right-of-way on the uphill side of the highway is the most obvious and preferable it is still important to have alternate options in case of unforeseen obstacles.
For now this team is in a bit of a holding pattern but working to complete the route option plans soon. This project will require a lot of community engagement and I will do my bet to keep people informed of opportunities to help.
If you feel like you would be a good fit for this team please reach out on the website. Go to “Mixed Path Team” under the Projects banner and click the “I want to join” button to get involved.
