Erie County's Environment and Planning Department is looking at running a bike path along Route 5 in the front of the old Bethlehem Steel plant site. The first phase would be from the city line with Buffalo to Smokes Creek.
What's different is that the bike path would be a 50 feet wide right of way in front of hundreds of acres of planned business parks. DEP's Chris Pawenski says the path is so wide for a second purpose, working with the Erie County Water Authority.
"Currently, their pipe is underneath Route 5 and it's quite old and it constantly breaks. And what they do is shut down Route 5 every time they need a repair," Pawenski explained.
"They would like to move, and put a new line in and if they could take it off of Route 5 from underneath it and move it off to the side of the road, we could same them one to three million dollars."
That route would also provide a strong water supply for the proposed business parks. The county has a grant approaching a million dollars which requires a 25 percent match and is planning the path with a goal of having the design later this year. Extensions along Smokes Creek and to Woodlawn Beach State Park would come later for more money.
