Trails Master Plan

North Salt Lake spent eight months with the consultant SE Group and its Trails and Active Transportation Committee drafting a master plan for the foothill trail system, where unofficial trails built at steep grades have caused erosion, rutting and conflicts among users. The draft recommends maintenance, new trail corridors in the Wild Rose and Woodbriar areas, and removing some of the user-created trails. It rests on a spring survey with 320 respondents, a summer survey with 79 and talks with Davis County, Bountiful, Salt Lake City and the Forest Service. Planning estimates in the packet include about 9.2 miles of new corridors for roughly $290,800 to build and $24,200 to design, and about $8,900 a year to maintain 7.4 miles. Staff stress that the plan guides budgeting and grant applications and does not commit the city to pay for anything. The committee recommended it on Oct. 13 with two changes: add the existing Woodbriar ravine trail to the maps as a trail to decommission, and require geotechnical analysis before building trails. The council saw the draft in an Oct. 20 work session with no action; the Planning Commission reviews it Oct. 27 and adoption is scheduled for the Nov. 4 council meeting. A trail marked for decommissioning in the draft is a proposal, not a closure.