Community Creation Sagle Trail Completed This Fall Is First Major Accomplishment Of North Idaho Bikeways

Bob and Wendy Carlson zip through some memorable territory when they strap on their Rollerblades and head toward Sagle.

They speed down into The Hole, then cross The Swamp and finally roll through The Causeway until they reach the end of the Sagle Community Trail.

Then they turn around and pass through memory lane again on their way back home.

The trail, just finished this fall, was an honest-to-goodness community creation - built from the sweat and resourcefulness of the locals.

It’s the first major accomplishment of North Idaho Bikeways, a nonprofit corporation headed by Bob Carlson.

“We’ve been buoyed up since we’ve had some success,” said Carlson, a Sandpoint doctor. “The more we do, the more people will want.”

Now the group has its sights set on a bike path from Dover to downtown Sandpoint, and others paths that head north of town to get kids safely to the Field of Dreams soccer complex in Ponderay.

The Carlsons, as well as the other volunteers involved with the Sagle Community Trail, hope future projects won’t require so much of their own physical labor.

When North Idaho Bikeways went to the Idaho Transportation Department for a grant to build the trail, it found that the money had dried up for such projects.

“We had nothing to go on,” Carlson said. Undeterred, they got permission to use the U.S Highway 95 right-of-way and looked for money elsewhere.

They found a $90,000 grant through the Idaho Parks and Recreation Department, but it required an equal amount of matching money.

Bikeways came up with in-kind donations of volunteer labor and materials worth about $130,000. The group became the prime contractor.

Among the many people who helped with the trail were National Guard members, Job Corps youth and Bonner County Jail inmates, who cleared brush.

“I had one person drive by and hand me $10,” Wendy Carlson said.

The person who handled most of the organization and logistics of getting the job done was former Alaska State Police Chief Terry McConnaughey.

“Terry held it together,” Carlson said. “Thank God he’s retired.”

Retired engineer Dick Creed designed the bike path to professional specifications and oversaw technical aspects of the work.

There were many.

The Causeway is a steep sidehill that forced the trail to be built into the hill.

“It was very nerve-wracking,” Bob Carlson said. “We almost dropped the excavator down the hill.”

Then there was The Swamp, which had about a foot of water in it. The workers laid down heavy-duty plastic along the bike route and covered it with tons of rock.

The Hole was such a big drop that it defied the trail requirement of a 4 percent grade. Again, the trail was built up along the hillside like a logging road.

Despite all of the difficulties of building the Sagle trail, the Carlsons are eager to work on the future projects.

“We’re creating linear parks,” Bob Carlson said. “We’re creating parkland. People will come in droves to these things.”

Now the group is working with the city of Sandpoint, the city of Dover and the Transportation Department on building a separated bike path from Dover into Sandpoint, to Larch Street and Fifth Avenue.

The route is along the abandoned Union Pacific Railroad grade.

A $150,000 grant for the Dover trail is on the short list of projects that will go before the state Transportation Board in Nov. 19.

If they get the Transportation Department grant, the work will be contracted out - and North Idaho Bikeways volunteers can focus on getting future projects funded.

Also on the list is a $140,000 grant to the Sandpoint Independent Highway District to replace the dilapidated Popsicle Bridge over Sand Creek with a bridge that eventually will link bike trails from Sandpoint to Ponderay.

It’s all part of North Idaho Bikeways master plan to improve safety for bicyclists, in-line skaters and pedestrians around Sandpoint and Bonner County.

Thorne Research, a Dover company that makes nutritional supplements, has pledged $15,000 to the Dover Trail.

“We thought that would be a great benefit to the community,” owner Al Czap said.

Czap estimates that a third of his employees would ride their bikes to work if they had a safe place to do it.

Now, the highway is so narrow, few bicyclists dare to venture west of Sandpoint.

This weekend, Alpine Designs, a local bike manufacturer, hosted a rally to help raise money for Bikeways.

Sandpoint City Planner Kevin Clegg said the cooperation of the different agencies and the grassroots community involvement has contributed to North Idaho Bikeway’s success.

But part of it is just plain endurance - the kind needed for a longdistance ride.

“They’re passionate about their cause,” Clegg said. “Completion of this plan is going to be a gradual process. … They’re aggressively going after each little piece.”

Map: Proposed Sandpoint bike paths