BROWNSTOWN — The Brownstown Biking and Walking Pathway Planning Project Team has scheduled two public open house community input meetings in the coming days.

The first meeting will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, and the second will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, at Twin Town Center, 1101 W. Spring St., Brownstown. The meetings will include an overview of project concepts and the current proposed routes.

Peter Ellery with E2praxis made that announcement during a town council meeting Monday evening. The Ewing consulting firm is conducting a $20,000 pathway study. The funding comes from the Indiana State Department of Health.

Ellery said during a recent planning meeting, the project team/advisory board put a framework in place for the development of pathway.

Ellery said a three-phase approach has been planned.

“The phases are very simple,” he said. “One of them is the development of a “spine.””

That would involve connecting a walking path on county property that ends at Walnut and Jackson streets on the town’s east side.

The proposed pathway would continue up west along Walnut Street, crossing Main Street at the traffic light and then go on to Ewing along Walnut Street. After talking with the cross country squads at Brownstown Central and others, some people would like to see the pathway continue on from Ewing out to the East Fork White River, Ellery said.

The next phase would be the development of connecting pathways from the “spine” to schools, the library, businesses, the U.S. Post Office and other places, and the third phase would involve pathways looping those sites together and then bringing them back to the main pathway, he said.

“So we go from just being a pathway to being a place where people can walk for fitness and health,” Ellery said.

This should allow everybody to be able to walk anywhere in town to anywhere they want or need to go, he said.

Some of the key facilities/features to the town’s future include in the proposal are street and pathway signage, art sculpture, play and interactive stations, traffic calming strategies, emergency response infrastructure, bike sharing, a community recreation center, dog park/training facilities and gateway bridges/tunnel across U.S. 50.

The public meetings are the next step in the process.

“We’re seeking public input,” he said of the public meetings in which anyone is invited.

For those who can’t attend, they may visit the E2praxis office in the Twin Town Center. You also may visit https://storymaps.com/stories/30d7fc487a7449c385139845dc17bceb

In a related matter, the Central Indiana Bicycling Association has agreed to provide $5,000 in funding to Brownstown/Ewing Main Street for a bicycle rodeo in May 17, 2025, Ellery said.