Editor,
Noblesville has made some notable recent improvement to our trail system. The extensions of the Levee and Riverwalk trails and the connection of the Midland Trace to Hague Road are significant and worth celebrating. So, I’m baffled why the city insists on misleading the public about “100 miles of trails.”
It is impossible to locate that much trail in our city because it doesn’t exist. When I brought that to the attention of the parks director, he replied that it’s an “inexact science,” so the city considers streets that connect trails to be trails as well. That’s how you get to 100 miles, by counting streets as trails. If that’s your metric, I guess you could say we have hundreds of miles of trails.
But we don’t. To cite just one blatant (and dangerous) example, the city claims we have a trail on Pleasant Street crossing Ind. 37. I challenge anyone to find it. There isn’t even a crosswalk. There are half a dozen other examples but not enough space here to document them.
But there’s plenty of space to spread the fiction that these trails exist. I brought this up to the parks director weeks ago, but he hasn’t had time to look into it, so the city just continues to spread the lie.
I know the current mayor is desperate to find some accomplishments to mark his 16 years in office, and I don’t wish him ill. But why not stick to the truth instead of making up fake accomplishments? We’ve made some modest improvements to our trails. Let’s celebrate that and stop with this 100 miles nonsense.
Mike Corbett, Noblesville
