A multi-county effort to connect various trails in the Barren River area is working to establish a network of pathways from Franklin to a bicycle trail that crosses the country.

According to Cave Country Trails Director Helen Siewers, the group plans to designate a network of roads and paths as a continuous trail that will connect Simpson, Warren, Barren, Edmonson and Hart counties to U.S. Bicycle Route 76, also known as the TransAmerica Bike Trail, which cuts horizontally across the state.

The paths Cave Country Trails wants to connect to U.S. BR 76 cut through Franklin, Oakland, Smiths Grove, Mammoth Cave National Park, Cave City, Horse Cave and Munfordville. The network would show off the area’s small towns and scenic countryside, Siewers said.

“We’re trying to find a balance with one of these routes of being off the beaten path while also being close to services and places of interest,” she said.

The plan will not involve paving new paths and instead constitutes marking a new trail with signs along existing, connected roads, Siewers said.

“What we’re proposing is using the existing roadways,” she said.

According to a Kentucky Tourism website, U.S. BR 76 stretches from Astoria, Wash., to Yorktown, Va., and includes 600 miles of Kentucky trailway, stretching from Crittenden County to Pike County.

The part of the trail closest to Cave County Trails is in LaRue County, just south of Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, Siewers said.

Horse Cave-Hart County Tourist Commission Executive Director Sandra Wilson said designating a set of trails that connects to U.S. BR 76 would serve as a way to promote the Barren River area to adventure tourists.

“This would give us the opportunity to join a network of promotion,” she said.

The connection to U.S. BR 76 would attract more cyclists to the area and encourage them to stay longer by connecting them to various points of interest, Wilson said.

“It just follows that they’ll stop and eat and maybe some of them stay and shop,” she said.

The plan, which Siewers doesn’t yet have a cost estimate for, would require Cave Country Trails to go through a local government agency to receive grant funding from the Federal Highway Administration, she said.

Siewers met Wednesday with Hart County Judge-Executive Terry Martin, who expressed interest in helping Cave Country Trails apply for grant funding.

Martin said he’s interested in Hart serving as a conduit for receiving federal funds given the benefits that connecting to U.S. BR 76 would have for the county and the area as a whole.

“Hart County and the whole southern Kentucky area, we have issues with quality of life,” he said. “This is what Hart County needs. More avenues for people to do different things.”

While a connection to U.S. BR 76 would provide incentives for tourists to stay in the area longer, it could also be attractive for companies looking to open an outpost in southcentral Kentucky. According to Martin, companies often consider quality-of-life factors such as schools and recreational offerings.

“We just want to do all we can to show that this is a good place to live,” he said.