Two bicycle trails were accepted by the Hernando-Citrus Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to close the Hernando County gap in the Coast to Coast Connector bicycle trail connecting St. Pete to Titusville. The gap is between the Suncoast Expressway Trail and the Good Neighbor Trail. The Good Neighbor trail is currently unfinished but will connect downtown Brooksville to the Withlacoochee State Trail several miles east of downtown. The Coast to Coast trail connection proposed by the state (FDOT) would run east along SR 50 from the Suncoast to the SR50 truck bypass which heads south around the city of Brooksville and then will connect to the Good Neighbor Trail. One million dollars out of the $18.8 million the state gave for the Coast to Coast Connector has been allocated to design efforts for the state’s proposed trail.
The other trail, proposed by the City of Brooksville was not given any funding but was placed on the Hernando-Citrus long range transportation plan along with the state’s trail proposal. The trail would run east along Jefferson Street then go through Tom Varn Park and head out to meet the Good Neighbor Trail just south of downtown. This trail was heavily pushed by former Brooksville City Council member Lara Bradburn and was presented by Brooksville City Councilman Butch Battista at the December 9th MPO meeting.
The MPO board chose to back the FDOT plan but also agreed to support a study for the Brooksville trail alignments although they did not budget any money towards it at this point. Mr. Pianta, Executive director of the MPO and Hernando County Administrator mentioned at the October 21st meeting that the board would have the opportunity to add an “amendment to fund the Brooksville study and add it as a new project on the transportation alternatives list” at the December 9th meeting.