PANORA, Iowa, July 20, 2010 — The contractors building the new concrete surface for five miles of the Raccoon River Valley Trail between Panora and Yale are now close enough to having the project completed that they’ve swept the trail, removed the barricades and people are using it again.

“It’s not officially open yet,” said Joe Hanner, the Guthrie County Conservation director and thus the trail manager in that county, “but it’s close enough that quite a few bikers have been using it.”

That’s great news for the many cyclists who were already planning to use the RRVT this week as the first leg of their rides to Sioux City.  That’s where on Sunday the 38th annual RAGBRAI begins.

The stretch of trail between Panora and Yale had been the last part of the RRVT that still had the original asphalt, which was badly deteriorated in its 21st year of use.  A $945,000 grant last year from the federal government’s economic stimulus program provided the funding to build the new concrete surface.  Construction started in late April, but workers were delayed again and again by heavy rains in the spring and early summer.

In fact, just this past weekend, the Panora-Yale area “received anywhere from 3.6 to 5 inches of rain about 3 a.m. on Sunday,” Hanner said on Tuesday.  “I’ll tell you what, we’re still backstroking from that big rain.”

But last Saturday, the construction workers were able to sweep the trail to removet a lot of dirt and other debris.  As they did so, they removed the barricades that had blocked entrance to the trail at both Panora and at Yale, and they put back up the trail signage.

Before an official trail opening can happen, Hanner said the contractor will be doing more work on the trail’s shoulders, preparing the surface and then putting in gravel.   There will be an inspection of the new surface, probably some minor repairs made and then a ceremony will be schedule.

RRVT users had also been dealing with another construction closure this spring and summer — on the Clive Greenbelt Trail where it passes under the bridges on Interstate Highways 80 & 35 on the west edge of the Des Moines metro area.  That was reopened to trail users just last Friday, July 16.