Mill Creek’s 15 Miles of Bike Trails (or is it really 9?)
September 9, 2007
I do a lot of bike riding. I’ve ridden all the trails in Mill Creek and most of the trails in Kane County. Mill Creek’s advertising prominently features 15 miles of bike trails, yet it seemed to me that there were actually a lot less than 15 miles. Since I routinely ride with a Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS unit, I decided to ride every trail and measure the mileage. So what actually counts as a bike trail? I assumed that any asphalt blacktop pavement within the confines of Mill Creek was a bike trail. Anything concrete was a sidewalk and not counted. Also, since Mill Creek and Tanna Farms golf cart paths are private property and not open to public use, I did not attempt to measure them. I also stopped measuring the trail at the trail bridge over Mill Creek at Fabyan Parkway where the trail crosses to Park District land.
The Results
I measured 9 miles of trails. While this is still an impressive number, it is clearly not 15. So where are the missing 6 miles? Could there be an additional 6 miles to come in the on-going build-out of Mill Creek? There may be some trails in the Tallgrass section that I missed, but certainly not 6 miles worth. Are they counting the golf course cart paths back from the days before the courses were sold to American Golf? Are they counting the linking trails leading into Peck Farm Park? I don’t know what the 15 mile claim is based on, but there are NOT 15 miles of completed bike trails in Mill Creek today.
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