The EVGV Trail Got Smaller, and That's Why It's Finally Moving

About 50 Ellicottville Central School students took part in the school's first Ride Your Bike to School Day this fall. Riders started at Ellicottville Town Hall and used sidewalks toward ECS, then rode along Route 219 from the Holiday Valley area to the school, with the Ellicottville Police Department and School Resource Officer Amber Graham helping at street crossings. Ellicottville Now ran that story on September 30, 2026. The same day it ran another one about the same stretch of road: the Ellicottville-Great Valley Trail has settled on a preferred route for a multi-use path from the corner of Route 219 and Route 242, where the Tim Hortons and Crosby's sit, to Ellicottville Central School.

Readers who have followed the EVGV Trail for a while may be skeptical, and they have reason to be. The idea dates to 2011. This milestone is different because of what the committee gave up to reach it.

Fifteen years, three versions of the same idea

The EVGV Trail was first proposed in 2011 after community feedback. Town Board member Ken Hinman formed the committee, Kate O'Stricker joined in 2012, and a trail Master Plan was finished in 2014. The plan has kept changing size since then:

The larger network hasn't gone away. The EVGV website's preliminary maps still show an extension south from the village toward Great Valley and a separate one east toward Holiday Valley Tubing Park. The four miles are the piece that has moved from a map into an engineering process. According to Ellicottville Now, the EVGV portion is the first segment of the larger Southern Tier Trail to clear every milestone needed to enter survey and design.

Both the Town and the Village of Ellicottville approved the current alignment. That approval is what lets the design team start surveying and drawing up preliminary concepts. A 15-mile network crosses many more property lines, road crossings and decision-makers than a 4-mile segment does. A smaller piece that two local boards could sign off on is the piece that could move first.

The money behind this, and its limits

The EVGV segment is one part of something much larger. The Southern Tier Trail is a planned trail of about 52 miles through Cattaraugus County. It would connect the Erie-Cattaraugus Rail Trail in Ashford to the Genesee Valley Greenway in Hinsdale. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced the federal funding on June 23, 2023. They described a corridor that mostly follows the old Buffalo-Pittsburgh rail line.

County records show a federal RAISE award of $7,044,971 from fiscal year 2023. It covers planning, environmental review, design and permitting for the 52-mile corridor. The county hired Colliers Engineering & Design for trail design and alignment under a contract running from January 1, 2025, to May 30, 2027. It also hired GObike Buffalo, for $429,772 over the same period, to run the public process. That work includes advisory groups, negotiating the corridor alignment, and an operations and maintenance plan.

The roughly $7 million is all for paperwork, studies and drawings. The estimated cost to build the four Ellicottville miles is $8 million, which is more than the entire federal planning grant for 52 miles. In its July 2026 update, GObike said construction funding for the Southern Tier Trail is not secured.

EVGV Board President Scott Johnson explained how the design work connects to construction money:

"We can't wait for the completed package so that we can start looking for grants to finally build this trail."

The finished design package is what the committee will use to apply for construction grants. That is why a surveying phase, which sounds dry, matters so much to the trail's future. Johnson also said the work is being carried by "a very small committee of 5 or 6 very dedicated individuals."

What the path might look like along the way

People often picture a trail as one continuous ribbon of crushed stone or pavement. The EVGV plan won't be that. Kate O'Stricker, the county staff member working on both the Southern Tier Trail grant and the EVGV segment, said the design team will choose a trail type for each section:

"There are several trail types, which will range from 8 to 10 feet wide off-road foot paths, on-road side paths, advisory lanes or bike shoulders. In some areas we may need to connect with the local sidewalk system as well. Our goal is to provide the safest space for bikes and pedestrians throughout the corridor."

So one walk from the Tim Hortons corner to ECS could switch between a separated path, a marked lane and a village sidewalk. Which treatment goes where is the main open question in this phase, and residents' local knowledge can help answer it.

There has been some earlier work on the ground. A 2023 report from The Villager said a segment from Tim Hortons to the Town Center had been "cut in." The EVGV website still labels its first section "under construction." Its preliminary map traces that section from Elizabeth Street past the bowling alley, along Elk Creek, through Village Park, then past the Nannen Arboretum and the Town Center toward Tim Hortons. Neither source says that stretch is a finished trail open to the public, so it's best to treat it as cleared ground.

Where the timeline stands

Here is the order of events for the four-mile segment, based on what has been published:

1. October 8, 2026, 6:30 to 8 p.m.: an open house at the Ellicottville Town Center, 28 Parkside Drive, to review the proposed route and design concepts and gather public input.
2. After the meeting: surveyors begin the boundary surveys that the design concepts will be built on.
3. Over roughly the next 18 months: surveying, all environmental assessments and design, paid for with the county's federal grant.
4. After design is complete: the committee looks for construction grants. No construction start date has been set.

The published dates don't fully match. County contract records end the design and public-process work on May 30, 2027, and GObike's schedule graphic shows May 31, 2027. Eighteen months from this fall reaches into 2028. The contracts may cover a different scope than the EVGV design itself, or the schedule may have shifted. Either way, these dates are estimates and could change.

The open house is set up for residents' input. Ellicottville Now describes it as an open-house format meant to share "local knowledge" and answer questions. Useful input could include where a shoulder feels too narrow, where people already cross Route 219 on foot, or the Route 219 stretch the Ride Your Bike to School Day group rode to reach ECS.

Getting involved beyond one evening

The EVGV Trail Committee meets on the first Monday of every month at 4 p.m. at the Ellicottville Town Center, and it is looking for new members. You can reach it at [email protected] or through evgvtrail.org. The committee's contact page asks for volunteers and fundraising help. Its donation page sends contributions through the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation. With $8 million in construction costs still unfunded, help with fundraising is likely to matter most once the design package is done.

Other volunteers have recently worked on the same streets the trail would reach. Since mid-September, volunteers from St. Paul's Lutheran Church have been sanding and staining the Village's 48 wooden benches under the church pavilion. The Village DPW crew drops off the benches and puts each one back downtown once it's done, and DPW Supervisor Mark Chudy says they were last stained four years ago. The trail committee is drawing on the same kind of local volunteer help.

If you're going to the October 8 open house and want to talk through how the proposed corridor runs past the parts of town you know best, Jennifer Courtney lives in the village and follows the EVGV plan closely. Let's Connect over coffee and the route map.