Palouse Planning Commission to improve walking trails

PALOUSE—The Palouse Planning Commission has a proposed walking trails project in the works that began about a month ago.

“We’re in a very preliminary and exploratory phase to this,” Palouse Planning Commission Secretary Chuck Stemke said.

Chair of the Palouse Planning Commission Tony Wright stated their goal is to improve the recreational walking paths.

“There’s a lot of people who walk,” Wright said, adding that he is one of the several people who walk that would want to improve the trails.

Stemke explained that the commission is undecided how they’re going to proceed with the project, but are planning to have a Walk-About Palouse event in May to get community input.

“With that we’re hoping to just kind of learn where people go on walks,” Stemke said, noting that they’d also like to hear the community’s input on what kind of features can be improved.

Stemke explained that some of the questions they want to find answers to would be what kind of infrastructure can be built and what can be cleared up to make it a more satisfying walk.

The project is working towards improvement to the trails, which Wright explained are not in good shape, and the concrete needs improved.

“Most of them are within the town,” Wright said of the walking trails.

There are several sidewalks in Palouse that end in the middle of nowhere, Stemke explained, adding that this could possibly lead to requests to extend sidewalks or paint crosswalks.

Stemke added that this could be a multiple year process of trying to tackle some of the easier problems first, with bigger projects down the road.

Overall, Stemke says they’re questioning the possibility of having a better, improved or expanded network of paths. These paths could possibly improve commerce in town, and just make walking around better for the residents of Palouse as well.

“Create some kind of attraction so people will stay in town for a few hours,” he said.

“Walking is great exercise,” Stemke said, adding that as they continue to look into it that they let people who own the land have a say so they know that the city is not trying to move in on their property.