Imagine riding a bike from Covington to Black Diamond and beyond.

If a regional trail corridor concept becomes reality, that could happen, connecting trails from Covington to Maple Valley to Black Diamond.

This concept was first proposed at a joint meeting between the city councils of the three cities in late September, explained Aaron Nix, Black Diamond’s parks and natural resources director.

Much of this vision in his city, Nix explained, was in place before he arrived in Black Diamond nearly two years ago as plans to make the most of a King County easement at the regional park at the south end of Lake Sawyer had been established.

“The conversation started when we had a tri-city meeting,” Nix said. “We thought it might be a neat concept if we could link all three cities with this regional trail.”

As the concept was fleshed out during the meeting, Nix said, the elected officials seemed to embrace it.

“The linkages between the three cities, the excitement I heard from the council members was for that very reason, that we could link up the three communities to benefit all,” Nix said. “It’s just very conceptual at this point. We don’t have a lot of budget to dedicate to it at this point. We’re hopeful in the future that as we grow we can dedicate funding to that.”

In Black Diamond, the trail would connect the Cedar to Green with a trail to be built south along Lake Sawyer Road that would run along the property line of YarrowBay’s proposed development known as The Villages.

“The parks directors of Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond have recognized a common interest of people being able to get through the three communities and also be able to connect the Soos Creek Trail System and the Cedar to Green trail,” said Covington Parks and Recreation Director Scott Thomas. “In recognizing that, we took the concept to the tri-city meeting, the joint meeting of all three city councils, and introduced it to them and the council members were all very enthusiastic about the concept and provided direction for all three cities to move forward and try to make it reality.”

Next up, Thomas explained, is for the local parks directors to meet with Kevin Brown, the director of parks and natural resources for the county, along with key county staff members in late January or early February “to talk to them about that process of getting it into the county’s plan and talk details.”

It will take years for the concept to become reality, Thomas said, “but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

“As this develops you could head south all the way down to the Green River Gorge or to Lake Sawyer (from Covington) or you could head west and go to Lake Meridian Park,” he said. “It connects people in Covington to all that green space, the open space areas east of Highway 169. People could get on their bikes and take the trail and access all of that. It would be powerful. The way it would weave the communities together is amazing.”

As the three directors — Thomas, Nix and Greg Brown of Maple Valley — have talked about the concept they divided the trail corridor into eight segments with each of them capable of being run independently.

Some of those segments are ready to build, others have yet to be designed and it’s just a matter of time before work can start.

“Here in Covington we still have to identify the route, how would we get from the Soos Creek Trail to the Cedar to Green trail,” Thomas said. “There’s route planning, there’s acquisition, there’s design, fundraising and construction… the east-west piece is way behind in the timeline compared to the north-south piece.”

And the cities will pay for it as they go, or a developer will pay for construction or money from a county parks levy will cover costs, depending on the segment of the trail.

“One of that things that often comes to mind for people is how are we going to pay for this,” Thomas said. “That’s a good question. We focus our resources on our highest priorities and we move along as well as we can. The concept doesn’t commit us to some heavy new taxing burden.”

A regional trail also makes sense from a transportation perspective, too, Thomas added, in addition to a recreation point of view. In fact, there are even economic development benefits to developing this trail.

“Walking, jogging and cycling are the most common recreation activity in Covington, with 69 percent of residents using a walking or biking trail in 2009,” Thomas said. “It’s a multi-generational activity. It’s close to home. So, it’s no surprise it’s a popular form of recreation. We’re also connecting residents of Covington with the businesses in Maple Valley and Black Diamond and vice versa.”

In addition, as more people get out of their cars and onto their bikes to commute to work, this trail corridor could help those folks as well.

“In the presentation we made… we also highlighted bicycle routes,” Thomas said. “There’s bike paths that are separate from the road and there’s bike lanes. When you weave together a whole system of bike paths, bike planes and mass transit such as (diesel multiple unit commuter rail) and buses, you see this whole network. It just gets more powerful when you connect it with other modes of transportation.”