A plan to extend Grant’s Trail will eventually allow bikers, joggers and walkers starting in Jefferson Barracks Park to make their way north into St. Louis City or west into Kirkwood.

Great Rivers Greenway introduced the plan to residents Monday night, showing how the new “Gravois Greenway” will connect South County to a ring of trails and highlighting a proposed new dog park and sculpture garden.

The plan would extend Grant's Trail, the bicycle and pedestrian "superhighway" of the St. Louis region, to a total of 10 miles, according to Great Rivers Greenway. The trail serves more than 650,000 users each year. Construction of the two-mile extension is estimated to begin in 2014, with completion in 2015.

Once completed, the extension would begin where Grant's Trail currently ends, near I-55 and Union Road, and connect cyclists and other Grant's Trail users from Kirkwood to Lemay along the Gravois Greenway. The trail would ultimately tie into the River des Peres Greenway at Lemay Park, providing more than 16 miles of through connectivity. This is a critically important connection to the Great Rivers Greenway River Ring concept.

The open house is standard procedure for the district, which works to include residents in the planning process of all major projects, because it is an organization funded by the people for the purpose of making the St. Louis region a better place to live. 

"We believe that one of the most important ways we can improve the qualify of life for St. Louis area residents is to provide them with clean, green transportation options, and so we are working to provide a connected system that allows users to connect across the region by foot or on-bike," said Susan Trautman, Executive Director for Great Rivers Greenway. "Our greenways are a bike and pedestrian system made especially for our residents. We feel it's very important to include them in every step of the process with open houses like these."