Starkey Gap Trail ribbon cutting

1:57:11Good afternoon and I'd like to welcome everybody to the ribbon cutting of the Starkey Gap Trail. Three, two, one. Woohoo! This might be the only ribbon I keep.

1:57:24The Starkey Gap Trail is a 2.4 mile connector that's a part of the Florida Coast to Coast Trail. It crosses 54 into Starkey Boulevard and provides access up Starkey Boulevard into Starkey Wilderness Park.

1:57:37So now cyclists can ride from Pinellas County into Pasco and beyond. So we're connecting, say, the city of St. Petersburg to Brooksville.

1:57:48So back in 2014, several of us started looking at the map of Florida and you saw all these different bike trails, but they weren't connected, which really kind of started the vision of a coast-to-coast bike trail paid for in partnership with the local counties but also the state of Florida. So it's exciting to see it all coming together.

1:58:09Petersburg all the way over to Titusville, Florida. So as each one of these gaps

1:58:14closes, Florida's ranking in the world of bicycle tourism is going to just climb and climb and climb. Citizens of Penells County are very excited that Pasco County will be joining us in the regional aspect of rails to trails and trails for the citizens and part of the coast to coast trail across the state of Florida.

1:58:31The funding comes from a number of sources. And we

1:58:33have

1:58:34a lot of partners, the counties, the DEP, others, so it really is a joint effort among a lot of folks.

1:58:39It's a great partnership and we think the trail is is great. We know that it goes through some of our land and actually Penells County, so why not Pasco?

1:58:49The Parks Department was tasked with managing basically all trail systems that fall outside of the right-of-way. So you know, basically your standard mowing, maintaining a Signage, security, things of that nature we would be taking care of.

1:59:00Just I'd like to thank Pasco County, uh, Commissioner Starkey. She is such an advocate for trails and especially safety for trails. She calls me all the time and uh looking for ways to make the trails safer, and so uh we're really fortunate to have someone like her to work with.

1:59:16So it's an amazing trail, an amazing accomplishment. It's great for trails. tourism, it's great for exercise, and it's great for economic development to have such a long, interesting trail available to people. I think people will come from all around the world to write this trail.