116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Proposed Robins bike trail angers some residents
City eventually wants to extend Stamy Road to Tower Terrace Road
ROBINS — The city of Robins wants to build a bike trail connecting several neighborhoods with the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and has $860,000 in federal money to do it.
But residents along Stamy Road, a dead end, don’t want the trail to bring more traffic to their peaceful street. The proposed route also would bisect a farm owned by the Stamy family for 160 years.
“In the fall, we shut everything off and let cattle roam about 140 acres,“ said Dave Stamy, 64. ”If someone were to go over the fence and think they’re going to pet a cow and they get killed, who’s responsible for that?“
Neighbors in this quiet corner of Linn County say they’ve gotten more than 100 signatures on a petition opposing the trail and a planned extension of Stamy Road — part of the city’s plans to develop the area northeast of the new Tower Terrace Road interchange with Interstate 380.
Bike trails booming
The Cedar Valley Nature Trail, 52 miles of paved trail in Linn County, connects with other trail systems to go all the way from Iowa City to Waterloo. The trail runs along Robins Road, a primary north-south route through Robins, a city of 3,300 north of Cedar Rapids.
“We have looked at some data about how many people use the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and it’s pretty amazing,” Robins Mayor Chuck Hinz said. “It’s somewhere around 650 to 700 people a day.”
The W. Main Street pedestrian and bike trail, a 10-foot-wide paved trail, originally was planned to go from the Cedar Valley Nature Trail on the east to N. Center Point Road on the west. It would be part of improvements to W. Main Street. Robins got federal grants worth $860,000 toward the bike path.
But in early 2022, Robins officials realized the W. Main Street improvements were too much to do in one phase, Hinz said. They decided the first phase would go from Robins Road on the east to Stamy Road on the west.
“What we had envisioned is taking that trail south along Stamy to the Stamy farm and then connecting south of there with a trail that goes from Chester (Road) and the Wildflower neighborhood west along the ITC power lines to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail,” Hinz said.
Residents surprised by plans
The city asked the Corridor Metro Planning Organization in March 2022 to amend the project to include the new route. The change was approved. The trail project would cost $1.08 million, said Hilary Hershner, Corridor MPO regional transportation planner.
Residents along Stamy Road and nearby side streets didn’t find out until January.
“I was really upset,” said Leslie Hoyt, 39, who lives on Morrison Drive with her husband and three children, ages 4, 5 and 7. They moved to the neighborhood so their kids could see cows grazing across the road, play in a hideout under two pine trees and ride bikes in the street without worrying about traffic.
“For me, it was scary, devastating, sad that our neighborhood could have a ton more foot traffic and car traffic,” Hoyt said.
Heather Martin, 47, and Paul Willenbring, 48, would lose part of their yard and driveway to the trail, as well as a sprawling maple tree. Without the driveway, Martin doesn’t know how they will have room to park their boat and two teen cars.
Lisa Terrill, 60, has lived in a wooded area off Stamy Road for 17 years. “I’m concerned it will bring a bunch of people down this way and we don’t want that,” she said.
The neighborhood fears are about more than the bike trail: The city eventually would like to connect Stamy Road to Tower Terrace Road with the planned 400-acre, mixed-use Robins Landing development in between. Developers already have purchased two parcels northwest of Tower Terrace and Robins Road and plan to build housing, commercial space and a 10-acre park, Hinz said.
Does the city have right of way?
One hurdle for the bike trail project is the question of whether the city owns the right of way to build the trail through the Stamy farm.
Stamy Road is paved only as far as Dave Stamy’s mailbox. South of there, the gravel road turns into a spindly, weed-choked trail with a fallen tree across the path. Paving a trail there likely would require grading work because of steep banks on either side.
Dave Stamy doesn’t understand why the city wants to put in a bike trail before a future road extension. He’s not keen to sell his acres for the project and said there would need to be a fence between the path and his cattle.
“You’re putting the cart before the horse here by trying to put in a bike trail,” he said.
The city has hired surveyors to figure out if the city does own that path and what legal agreements between landowners and the city might be in place from as far back as the 1930s, Hinz said.
“We’re pretty close to getting a final legal opinion on “Is there a right of way?” If there is, where is it?“ he said. ”Then we can sit down with everybody involved and say “What alternative do we have to still make this master plan happen in as pleasant and legal way as possible?”
Hoyt and her neighbors plan to bring the petition to the Robins City Council’s Oct. 2 meeting or as soon as the survey is complete and the topic is on the agenda.
Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com
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