DELHI CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WSYM) - It doesn’t take very long for many walkers and bicyclists along the Sycamore Trail in Delhi Charter Township to notice a portion of the trail is underwater.
The Sycamore Creek is overflowing onto the trail where it meets I-96.
Frustrated and fed up, Ryan Thomas recorded video from his point of view simply trying to get across.
Thomas says he uses that stretch of trail to get from point A to point B and has encountered water up to a foot deep.
“I would like to see something done to divert a little more water,” Thomas said. “If they attempted something in the past and it seemed to work then why not improve on that solution or come up with something else, I feel like there should be some sort of cost effective method.”
Delhi Charter Township officials say they've tried improving water flow.
Ingham County Drain Commissioner Pat Lindemann is not surprised because the trail is in a flood plain.
Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) regulations prohibit raising the trail and a bridge over the highway could get costly.
“I think the other alternative is to not have a path and I don't think that that is a very good alternative,” said Lindemann. “I think that the path is there and you can use it most of the year, even in the winter sometimes it’s usable. We are putting some use into a facility that we did not have before.”
With a solution unlikely, trail goers may just be left waterlogged.
“It is a very nice trail except for that section,” said Thomas. “Out of the 30 or so miles that I have done between Lansing, East Lansing, and Holt, it is the only section that is problematic.”
Lindemann says flooding on the trail poses no health concern.
The Sycamore Trail opened in 2014 and is a little over two miles long.
It connects the Lansing River Trail to Ingham County’s Valhalla Trail.
