Grants would fund bike bridge for Grafton-to-Cedarburg spur

Ozaukee County supervisors last week voted to apply for two state grants that, one way or another, would pay for providing a bike bridge over Cedar Creek in the Village of Grafton.

One grant would pay for adding a bike lane to the Highway 60 bridge, the other would pay for building a separate standalone bridge.

In either case, the bridge would be part of the east-west extension of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail along Highway 60 from downtown Grafton to the Five Corners area of Cedarburg.

Development of the trail is hoped to coincide with the repavement of Highway 60.

The Grafton-to-Cedarburg spur is an extension to the 30-mile Ozaukee Interurban Trail, which stretches the length of the county from Milwaukee County to Sheboygan County, following the path of the old Interurban Electric Railway.

The first grant for $100,000 from the state Department of Natural Resources Recreational Trails Program would put the trail in the right of way of Highway 60.

“The bridge deck has enough width to accommodate the bike trail,” county Planning and Parks Director Andrew Struck said.

The second grant for the separate bridge would also be from the DNR’s Recreational

Trails Program and also for $100,000.

“The contingency is to use the current bridge. The separate bridge would be preferred,” partly for safety reasons, Struck said.