Fort Wayne walkers and joggers on the near-northwest side are one step closer to trekking the Pufferbelly Trail that will connect with the 23-mile Greenway. The Fort Wayne Board of Public Works on Wednesday approved a $2,200 contract with Engineering Resources Inc. for preliminary engineering work on Phase 2 of the trail.

When Phase 2 is completed, the 12-foot-wide trail - named for the old steam locomotives that traveled along the corridor the Pufferbelly is taking - will run from the Lima Road entrance of Glenbrook Commons to Olive Garden restaurant on Coliseum Boulevard. Phase 1, with preliminary work approved earlier, will run from Lawton Park to Fernhill Avenue to the Glenbrook Commons entrance and connect to the Greenway at Lawton Park. A short jut off the main trail will connect to Franke Park.

Bearing the nickname of the old steam locomotives, most of the trail will follow a former railroad corridor. Pufferbelly Trail is part of the 80-mile State Visionary Trail that will eventually connect Pokagon State Park near Angola to Ouabache State park in Bluffton, said Dawn Ritchie, greenway manager.

The city has already received nearly $1 million in federal Transportation Enhancement (TE) grants to help pay for the engineering and right of way acquisition costs, with local funding coming from CEDIT funds, donations and grants. The city is applying for two new TE grants totaling $880,000, with $180,000 of that for engineering and property acquisition and the rest for the 6-mile creek trail connecting Southtown Centre at Anthony Boulevard to Lemar Drive.

Construction of Pufferbelly Phase 1 should begin around 2012, and a year later Phase 2 construction would begin if things continue as planned, Ritchie said. The city has about nine properties to acquire along the Phase 1 section.

Another hurdle to completing Pufferbelly Trail in Fort Wayne involves getting across Coliseum Boulevard, as the trail will continue from what was the Dimension Ford property north to Washington Center Road in Phase 3.

“We're going to have to get money for a pedestrian bridge over Coliseum Boulevard. That could cost $3 (million) or $4 million,” Ritchie said. Owners of the ice rink under construction near Wells Street, Fernhill and Lima are contributing to the Pufferbelly Trail project in that area, Ritchie said.

Annually, Indiana receives about $20 million in TE funds, which the state decided last year to divide among the six Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) districts and each of Indiana's Metropolitan Planning Organization. Allen County is represented by the Northeast Indiana Regional Coordinating Council, which also includes Adams, Wells and DeKalb counties.

Another trail-related contract given the go-ahead by the Board of Works on Monday is for Phase 1 of the 5.5-mile Towpath Trail on the city's southwest side. It will connect the Greenway with the Aboite New Trails system. Wayne Asphalt was approved for the $237,856.52 contract.