IMAGE COURTESY THE MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
A Maryland bikeway extends along the road shoulder. The Town of Berlin last week received news that state grant money for construction of a similar bikeway in Berlin did not come through, but officials are hopeful the funds will become available next year.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Oct. 18, 2018) The proposed Berlin Bikeway through the town will have to wait a year or more apparently, as grant money to start construction was denied by a state agency.

The Town Council in May unanimously approved the concept for a $950,000, 1.8-mile Berlin Bikeway adjacent to the old railroad tracks, but the idea is now roughly two years old.

Also approved at the time was an application for a grant from the Maryland Department of Transportation Bikeways program for the construction’s first phase, which would run from Berlin Falls park on Old Ocean City Boulevard to Broad Street.

Planning Director Dave Engelhart in July said the application had been submitted and the town was seeking $289,000 in construction funds. He said the total cost for that phase was estimated at about $361,000.

Maryland and Delaware Railroad, which owns the tracks, granted a right of way for the Berlin Bikeway and the Salisbury firm of Davis, Bowen & Friedel, Inc., funded by a Maryland Department of Transportation grant secured last October, drafted the concept plan.

However, a crack in the road appeared earlier this month.

“We got notice last week that we didn’t get the grant for construction funds,” Engelhart said in a phone interview Friday. “I was told that they are very interested in the project and want to fund it, but they just didn’t in this cycle.”

He added projects that did receive funding “had already spent money to start bikeways in these other towns and cities.”

Engelhart said the pool of available money was relatively small, under $2 million for the entire state.

He plans to reapply for the construction funding at the start of the next application cycle in May.

“I was hopeful it would happen on this go-round, because they like the project. They tell me that all the time – the people I deal with, with the bikeways program,” Engelhart said. “They think it’s a worthwhile project.

“I put a lot of time and effort and I was disappointed when I got that email,” he continued. “When I got [the application] off, I was hopeful and I said it would be nice to have that project up and going, because it’s been two years since we first got the idea and got the design grant, and, like anything else, it take a lot of time – on both ends.”

Engelhart added, “I’ll do my best to make sure it happens. And I feel like it will, because they told me again and again that ‘we want to fund your project.’ But the other ones were just further along is the way it was put to me.”