Ask Mr. Answer Person: "How many 'local road' dollars and 'farm to market' dollars are being spent on yet again another bike trail?"

(Bill e-mails: "How many 'local road' dollars  and 'farm to market' dollars are being spent on yet again another bike trail?")

Mr. Answer Person says, "Leaving aside the implication that another bike trail is what's wrong with our area, the fact is that 'bike trail dollars' are actually lowering the cost of repaving River Road.

The apparent low bid on the project to build the Freeport extension of Trout Run Trail and to repave River Road to the Haugen Hummel Additional was $2,381,277.10.

Winneshiek County Engineer Lee Bjerke says about half of that figure represents the cost of building the bike trail, while the other half is the cost of the street project.  In other words, it will cost roughly $1,190,638.55 to build the bike trail and $1,190,638.55 to repave River Road.

The Trails From Freeport group did private fundraising for the bike trail and wrote applications for several grants.  There were $197,500 in private donations, $100,000 from a state REAP grant and $1,651,475 from a federal TIGER grant.  That means the funds raised paid for ALL of the costs of the bike trail.

But if you've been doing the math as you've been reading this story, you've realized that a total of $1,948,975 has been raised so far--leaving $432,302.10 in costs to Winneshiek County.

Another way of saying this is that it would have cost Winneshiek County $1.2 million to repave River Road, but it will cost the county just 36 percent of that, thanks to the fundraising and grant application writing efforts of the bike trail supporters."