This year was another close-but-no-cigar moment. Although both Minnesota House and Senate bills included $2.25 million to construct the first phase of the Chester Woods Trail — a blacktop path running form County Road 11 to the entrance of Chester Woods Park — the proposal slipped from the final bill.

Yet long-suffering city leaders and legislators haven't given up. State Sen. Carla Nelson, a Rochester legislator who carried the bill in the last session, is hopeful that the next legislative session — a bonding year — will be the year.

One reason for her confidence, she says, is that the project seeks to complete a trail already begun. And secondly, the path would connect to existing trails, part of a grander vision that would link Chester Woods to Rochester's 107 miles of city trails to the west of Eyota and eventually to the 13-mile Great River State Trail to the north.

"From my perspective, we should have highest priority to complete a trail project that you started," Nelson said.

Harmony connections

But Eyota isn't the only southeastern Minnesota city with dreams of building trails or adding to existing ones. Across the region, communities are looking to put forward proposals that would connect their trails to tourist hotspots or other cities.

In Harmony, a group is working on extending the Harmony–Preston State Trails with a six-mile segment from the trailhead in Harmony to Niagara Cave and the Iowa border, said Andrew Oftedal, a research and policy specialist with the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota.

Another group in nearby Preston is working to extend its trail to Forest Mystery Cave. A group in Zumbrota is looking to span the southern portion of the Goodhue–Pioneer State Trail originating in Zumbrota with the northern part coming out of Red Wing. That, too, is part of grander plan to unite the Cannon Valley Regional Trail in Red Wing with the Douglas State Trail in Pine Island.

It's not hard to understand why cities and communities devote years, if not decades, to such campaigns, given the proven economy-boosting potential of trails. In 2009, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development found that bicyclists were the most active trail users behind walkers and hikers.

Economic impact

The value of all goods and services produced in the state attributed to bicycle riders' spending came to $261 million. The spending supported more than 5,000 jobs and helped generate $35 million in taxes, the study found.

"I'm originally from Lanesboro. I can see the huge impact it's made on Lanesboro," said Jeff St. Mane, chairman of the Chester Woods State Trail committee, referring to the tourism boost the Root River State Trail has delivered to Lanesboro. "We don't anticipate it becoming as big as that, but we'd like to get an economic benefit out of it."

Another factor is safety, St Mane said. Many Eyota residents who commute to Rochester would ride their bike to work if they could. A linkup with the Rochester trail would provide riders with the ability to do that.

The state began to fund and build trails in the 1980s. Today, the number of paved trails in the state now approaches about 600 miles. Two years ago, the council did a series of short duration counts across the state to estimate usage of the trails and came away with a rough estimate of 1.8 million users a year, Oftedal said.

Hard facts

Oftedal said Minnesota is "pretty unique" compared to other states in its commitment to a trail network. Wisconsin has a similar network but most of its trails are made from crushed limestone whereas Minnesota's are paved. The state's network is also more centrally planned through the Department of Natural Resources.

One reason that it has taken longer for trails to be funded and completed recently than in the past is that many of the earlier trails were built on abandoned railways. Many, if not most, of those corridors have been completed.

"It's a bit harder to find those long distance routes," Oftedal said. "That's part of the reasons it takes takes longer to build."

That doesn't mean communities like Eyota don't continue to hope.

"It's taken a long time to get to this point," St. Mane said. "We're hoping that finally things will start happening."