ST. MARY PARISH — Morgan City leaders say a long-discussed vision to create a connected bike and walking trail network is finally taking shape after years of planning and recent major funding support. The project, which began developing in 2018, gained momentum when the nonprofit St. Mary Excel secured more than $100,000 from the H & B Young Foundation to hire an engineer and design the map used to pursue additional grants. That map helped the city land a $16.9 million Raise grant, which will fund more than half the trail system.
Carrie Stansbury, who has lived in Morgan City for more than 20 years and serves as executive director of Cajun Coast Tourism, said the expanded trail could help both residents and visitors navigate the area more safely. “We do hope that these walking trails and this accessibility will get those visitors and family members to come back and say ‘oh my God I had such a great time and got out with my family and walked and biked the trails’,” she said. Stansbury added that safe routes could also support students traveling to South Louisiana Community College. “We don’t really have public transportation and so a lot of people use bicycles and so you want to let those students who want to go to community college be safe and use those paths to bicycle to school.”
St. Mary Excel president Catherine Holcomb said the organization’s early grant work helped establish the first parts of the trail near the Cajun Coast Visitor Center, laying the foundation for future expansion. “We were able to fund three grants and we started building and this is actually the completion of the second grant, these were all trails that had been built,” Holcomb said. While showing the project map, she described what the trail connects: “yea it shows you the towers it shows you the lake Palourde it shows you the hospital.”
Morgan City CAO Charlie Solar said the city continues to follow the long-standing trail plan as more funding becomes available. “We’re still following that plan. We're standing on some of that walking trail that the state actually helped pave some of this right here along with some local funds,” he said. According to Solar, the project is moving steadily despite its size. “15% of it done but about 100% of it on paper, you know the plan is there so we’re working on it.” He said the new Raise grant will significantly expand the network. “That’ll put us probably 60% of the trail so it’s still about 15 to 20 % that we’ll have to come up with but we have workers on that working on funding there too.” Once finished, Solar said, the trail will span across Morgan City and connect key parts of the community. “It’s gonna be around the entire city with a few little fingers going through the middle to access key parts of the community.”
City officials say roughly 15 to 20 percent of the project is currently out for bid, and they hope to break ground early next year as momentum continues building.
