Ozaukee Interurban Trail
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The Ozaukee Interurban Trail is a roughly 30 mile long bicycle trail in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. It is built on the bed of the former Milwaukee Electric Railway, an interurban passenger railway, which ran from Sheboygan to Milwaukee. The southern end of the trail is at Brown Deer Road in Brown Deer, and its northern end is at the Ozaukee/Sheboygan County line. It travels through the cities, villages and towns (listed from south to north) of Brown Deer, Mequon, Thiensville, Cedarburg, Grafton, Port Washington and Belgium.
The trail is open to non-motorized pastimes, such as bicycling, rollerblading, cross-country skiing, jogging and birdwatching.
While most of the trail is on the railway right-of-way, some sections are diverted to city streets and country roads for safety concerns or where the railroad sections are unusable.
Oversight of the trail is by the Ozaukee Interurban Trail Advisory Council. Subcommittees include Rules and Ordinance Development, Sustainability Committee, Trailside Facilities and Trail Promotions.
[edit] History
An electric passenger railway ran on some or all of a route between Milwaukee and Sheboygan, from 1905 to 1948. The right-of-way was later acquired by Wisconsin Electric (now We Energies). Much of the land for the trail is leased from the power company. Some segments of the right-of-way were turned into bike paths in 1975. In 1998, the county and several of its communities received state funding to build the trail. Since much of the trail is on old railroad beds, little work needed to be done to convert the land to a bike trail. First, crushed limestone was laid. When enough money was raised, asphalt paving was begun. Some sections needed to be newly constructed, and two bridges needed to be built. A bridge over the Milwaukee River in Grafton was completed in March of 2002. The official grand opening was on September 28, 2002.
A bridge over Interstate 43 was expected to be built in the summer and fall of 2006. Shortly before construction was to have started in July, the state Department of Transportation imposed design changes which will boost the cost of the bridge by $650,000. Twenty percent of the original cost of this bridge was funded by private donations, while the remaining eighty percent ($1 million) was funded by the state.
The plan is that the trail will eventually be extended to Sheboygan.
