Reactions range from disappointment to joy after the Sisters Ranger District’s decision last week to scrap plans for a paved path between Sisters and Black Butte Ranch.

“On a personal level, I’m very disappointed because I think it is a very good idea,” said Chuck Humphreys, chairman of the Sisters Trail Alliance. The Sisters-based nonprofit worked for three years on the proposal for a 7.6-mile paved path linking Sisters to the Tollgate subdivision and Black Butte Ranch. He said he saw community support for the plan, but it ran into vocal objectors.

Among those who opposed the plan, Mike Morgan, of Sisters, said he didn’t see widespread community support for the path that would have paralleled U.S. Highway 20. He’s glad the U.S. Forest Service pulled the plan.

“I think it is the right thing for them to do,” he said.

The district cited a lack of room for compromise as the reason for canceling the planned path. The plan drew nearly a dozen formal objectors who met with Forest Service officials at a public meeting in late September.

“Some of them weren’t willing to compromise,” said Kristie Miller, Sisters District ranger.

At the September meeting, John Allen, Deschutes Forest supervisor, said he would come up with one or more proposals for those who objected to the plans to consider within a month, but weeks later the district announced it was dropping the plan completely.

The district will now consider new proposals for a trail between Sisters and Black Butte Ranch, Miller said, and would like to see those proposals come from a new or existing group representing a wider spectrum of the community.

The Forest Service will participate in planning, “but we are not going to lead the process,” Allen said.

The path would have catered to walkers, runners and cyclists and would have cost about $1.8 million to build, with most of the funding from federal grants. The district also scrapped plans for a similar $1 million, 1.1-mile paved path between Sisters and the Crossroads subdivision in July, with Miller saying Crossroads residents weren’t ready for a path in their community.

While the Sisters Trail Alliance led efforts for the potential paved paths from Sisters to Black Butte Ranch and Crossroads, Humphreys said he doesn’t know if the group would lead renewed planning for a Sisters-to-Black Butte Ranch path. An environmental report alone for the last plan cost the group about $12,500.

“I don’t know who would take it on,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7812, ddarling@bendbulletin.com