CHRISTIANSBURG -- Organizers of the Huckleberry Trail expansion on the Christiansburg side say the time has come to cross a bridge.

To get the trail across busy Virginia 114 and eventually to the Christiansburg Recreation Center, there will have to be an overpass connecting the trail from New River Valley Mall to the rear of Wal-Mart's property.

For Christiansburg Councilman Brad Stipes, an engineer with Anderson & Associates and the town's representative on the trail expansion project, that's not such a big problem.

"Most everyone perceives that the 114 crossing is an insurmountable crossing," he said when plans for the expansion began. "It is not. It's just a bridge."

Engineers with Gay and Neel, the company selected by Friends of the Huckleberry to research and develop plans for the bridge, have come up with a preliminary plan: a prefab structure.

Like people looking to save money by buying a modular home, a pre-engineered and prefabricated bridge is a cost-effective alternative to designing and building an overpass from scratch.

Kevin Conner, a landscape architect with Gay and Neel, said the price of hiring someone to design the bridge would cost as much as the bridge itself.

"A pre-engineered bridge would save the consulting fee to have a bridge designed," he told a gathering of planners, council members and officials from Christiansburg, Blacksburg and Montgomery County on Wednesday evening.

Conner said he invited people from around the area to get their input on the bridge, which will be a visible landmark on a major thoroughfare.

Engineers with Gay and Neel, the company selected by Friends of the Huckleberry to research and develop plans for the bridge over Virginia 114, have come up with a preliminary plan: a prefab structure, shown here by a computer-generated sketch created by landscape architect Kevin Conner.

"From everything I've looked at," he said, "prefabricated steel is going to be the least expensive option and probably the best option."

Conner said Gay and Neel is looking at a 100-foot bridge span, a length that will accommodate the long-planned widening of Virginia 114. Ramps on either side of the bridge will likely have a 10 percent to 12 percent grade for walkers, bicyclists and others who use the popular trail that currently runs across five miles from New River Valley Mall to the Blacksburg library. Long-range plans are to extend the trail north from Blacksburg to Jefferson National Forest, as well to the new aquatic center under construction in Christiansburg.

All that, of course, depends on funding and will have to be done in stages as money becomes available.

"We don't have a lot of funds for this," Friends of the Huckleberry President Bill Ellenbogen told people at a Feb. 6 planning meeting. "This is going to be done on a hope and a prayer."

With sponsorship from Montgomery County, the nonprofit Friends of the Huckleberry applied for about $450,000 in federal Transportation Enhancement Program grants. Grant award announcements are expected in May.

Kevin Conner (right), a landscape architect with Gay and Neel Inc. of Christiansburg, points to the location of a planned bridge for the Huckleberry Trail over Virginia 114 in Christiansburg. The 100-foot bridge span will connect the trail from New River Valley Mall to the rear of Wal-Mart's property.

"Our goal is to make construction progress on this in 2008," Stipes said. "The extent of that progress will greatly depend on the funding we receive from the federal government. We'll build as much as we can in 2008."

The estimated cost of extending the trail over Virginia 114 to the Wal-Mart is $560,000. Conner presented the group four cost scenarios for the bridge itself, ranging from roughly $383,000 to $487,000, and noted that painting the bridge would add 25 percent to the cost.

Those estimates are for basic, no-frills bridges. The plans do call for enclosures on the bridge so that pranksters can't toss rocks onto traffic underneath. With the proposed ramp grades of at least 10 percent, Ellenbogen said it would be necessary to install gates to force bikers to dismount when crossing the bridge, too.

Upgrades, of course, will add to the cost. Project organizers say it will be up to the town and private contributors to provide financial support for a bridge and landscaping that are aesthetically appealing.

"This is a bridge that everyone will see for a long time," Conner noted.

Ellenbogen, who spearheaded the original Huckleberry Trail project in 1989, said his group has worked hard to get this latest expansion under way. He hopes Christiansburg officials and residents will respond favorably -- and generously.

"I think the next step will be to go to council and get some political support," he said.