Petition to Change Flint River Trail Barriers After Local Man Injured
And he's not the first person to end up in the hospital because of them.
If you've never biked the Flint River Trail, first of all, WHY NOT?!?! It's an absolutely gorgeous 17-mile-long piece of Genesee County that EVERYBODY should take advantage of. If 17 miles is too much for you (and that's totally okay), there are multiple trail end & start points.
Now, let's talk about the not-so-great part of the trail (other than the bugs)...
...the barriers.
They're actually there for a good reason - to keep motorized vehicles off of the trail, keeping it safe for cyclists, walkers, and runners. I biked almost the entire thing about a month ago; there are 12 barriers between Boulevard Dr. and Vassar Road.
They don't jump out at you; you can see them coming. There's just barely enough room for a person on a bicycle to get through in-between them. However, even if you've slowed to an almost-crawl, they're tough to get through.
So tough, in fact, that several people have been injured and ended up in the hospital, including Riley McLincha, aka the guy who runs and dribbles basketballs and plays music gigs around Flint. You've probably seen him at some point.
On the 4th of July, he hit one of the barriers and ended up having surgery on his clavicle, as well as broken ribs.
As soon as he recovered, he started a petition to Genesee County Parks to have the barriers changed. And, based on the comments, he's not the only one to suffer injuries.
The petition isn't asking for the barriers to be removed, just changed so that they're not a hazard. So far, the petition has almost 190 signatures. Click HERE to add yours.
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