By Teddy Rydquist
Leader Staff Writer
A project a couple of years in the making, the Polly Ann Trail is closing in on the finalization of their Master Plan, which will replace the plan that expired in 2017.
“We basically started from scratch,” said Linda Moran, who has served as the Polly Ann Trail Manager since 2016. “We needed to do some updating on our interlocal agreement and our bylaws in order to get trust fund grants from the state of Michigan, there’s certain criteria you have to meet. We have been working with the DNR (Department of Natural Resources), we’ve been working with Oakland County, and then all of the local municipalities to update our requirements.
“We have updated those, we did some community outreach meetings, two in each of the communities, we put all of our demographics and all our information together and we are now working on our finished product, which, hopefully, will be on public display within the next week.
“We’ll have a copy of it at the municipalities, unfortunately, most of them are closed because of COVID, we’ll have a link on our website where people can look at our Master Plan and give us any kind of feedback they would like, as far as what our ideals are vs. the community.”
December

4 is the target date to have this information available to the public. The trail’s website is pollyanntrailway.org.
Compiling information during a series of six public meetings in fall 2019, Moran shared the areas of importance in the new plan.
“What we are looking at, this time around, is we need to have some work done on the trail. We need resurfacing done, the trail has not been resurfaced since it was created 20 years ago, and they recommend every 10 years to have it resurfaced.
“She’s (the trail) holding together well, but she needs some work. There’s different upgrades we would like to do as far as upgrading our parking lots and possibly getting some bathroom facilities out there, right now we only have a few out there and we’d like to see about possibly getting some more.”
The Master Plan is what they have planned for the next five years.
The process of finalizing this plan involves a few steps and residents of the Oakland County portion’s five communities – Addison Township, Orion Township, Oxford Township, Village of Leonard, and Village of Oxford – play a critical role in this process.
Each of these five communities are represented on the Polly Ann Trail Management Council (PATMC), which oversees the Oakland County portion.
“Once all the revisions are done, we (the PATMC) will send it out to be reviewed by the public, like a public reviewing period, and I believe that is 30 days,” Moran said. “So, people can go to the website, they can go to the municipalities, take a look at it, give us any feedback, then the Council meets again, we go over the revisions, that sort of thing.
“Once everything is set, all the revisions are done, we send it to the state of Michigan, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. They review it and approve it, then send it back to us. Once that’s done, it’s adopted by the Council, and the communities, and we are off for the next five years.”
The Council’s plan to emphasize additional parking and restroom facilities mirrors what they heard from the residents during their community outreach meetings.
The Polly Ann Trail relies heavily on grants from the state to fund their efforts, which were significantly decreased in 2020 because of the coronavirus (COVID-19). If you would like to donate to help the trail continue to thrive, this can be done using American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa on their website.