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Re: Info from LIB on Hennepin Canal closing
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ho3-@fastmail.net
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Sep 03, 2008 23:05 PDT
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Thank you for being out there for the cyclists of Illinois, Ed!
Howard
Ed Barsotti wrote:
| | Dear ILcyclist members and others,
I found out about the proposed Hennepin Canal Trail closing just before
leaving to Seattle for a conference, but I’ve been able to find out some
things. For those who were not aware, the trail – and some canal
reclamation – had received significant federal dollars ($15.4 M) with a
($3.9M) state match, to make it what is it today.
It appears that the State (the Governor’s administration, including top
IDNR brass) looked only at staff numbers (and political districts?) when
deciding which state parks to close, and they were not aware of the
other legal implications involving the Hennepin.
Today at the conference, I asked Christopher Douwes (Federal Highway
Administration, top expert on fed funding for bikeways) to confirm that
it is illegal for the state to close a project that the feds had
invested in. The answer was definitely YES. According to federal law
(23 USC 116), the state DOT is responsible for insuring that such
projects are being maintained (open), and they can delegate this
authority to another agency (in this case, IDNR).
At first I thought violating this law would force the state to return
all of the federal dollars, but that is not the case. However, the law
does say that the Federal Highway Administration may serve notice to the
state DOT about a violation, and if it is not corrected, the feds could
actually choose to withhold ALL federal transportation dollars from the
state – a huge sum!
I have remotely been in discussions with IDNR, IDOT, and the Federal
Highway Administration about this option, and when we return from the
conference, LIB will be able to pursue this much more strongly. Look
for action alerts or updates later.
Thanks for all respondents’ interest in this.
Ed Barsotti, LIB
(PS to Chuck or Al – please forward to LIBnews, as I cannot do this from
Seattle)
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