Wayne County Parks and MCMBA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding allowing us to develop mountain bike trails in Hines Park.
Hines Parkway is a contiguous park of varying widths along Hines Drive and the Middle Rouge River from Northville to Dearborn Heights. Along this parkway is a heavily used paved recreational pathway of approximately 15 miles in length. The MCMBA proposed leveraging this unique setting by creating parallel mountain biking trail loops off of the paved pathway where land and conditions support it. These packed dirt single track segments would branch off the paved pathway into the park and take advantage of the terrain to provide users an interesting off-road experience and ultimately connect back to the paved bike pathway. Some of these single track sections might be relatively short, but some areas may support several miles of single track before rejoining the paved pathway. This trail design is very approachable for users of the paved pathway, allowing beginners to begin exploring single track on easy, short, flat segments and gradually trying new segments and experiences, enjoying nature and the outdoors while in fact never being more than a few hundred yards from Hines Drive. It also provides a very flexible venue for running events, allowing an event designer to choose a course mixing on-road and off-road loops and packing more interesting mileage in less space.
This project, a decade in the making, identifies two areas of the park for our initial work: Newburgh Lake and River View Drive.
Mike Flack will be the trail coordinator driving this project, and has flagged segments of the proposed River View Drive trail and gained approval to begin the implementation. Want to help? Watch the Volunteers Needed forum of the MMBA site for announcements of trail days!