Riverhead: Funding short for trail extension plan in Calverton

Riverhead Town wants to extend a bicycle and pedestrian trail 8.5 miles around the perimeter of the Enterprise Park at Calverton, but lacks the funds, town board members said Thursday.

The project will cost $250,000, based on estimates from the highway department, Bruce Kagan of the Riverhead Town Alternative Transportation Committee told the town board during a work session.

Kagan said the project will require paving and refurbishing some of the proposed trail, clearing vegetation and laying gravel on an environmentally sensitive stretch in the pine barrens.

The trail would wind past meadows and ponds, near Calverton National Cemetery and Grumman Memorial Park. Kagan said it would take bicyclists and pedestrians off busy Middle Country Road.

“It would make the Town of Riverhead a beacon for those of us who use multiuse trails,” he said. “This is a loop trail and it’s in a security fence for the most part. It’s sheltered, it’s safe.”

It would add to an existing 3.5-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail in the 2,300-acre property, where Grumman Corp. built and tested military aircraft. Riverhead is in the middle of subdividing and selling chunks of the town-owned property.

Town board members said they support the trail, but money is short as the town grapples with a budget crisis. “We just need to find the money,” Supervisor Sean Walter said.