Grand Teton officials Tuesday released a long-awaited transportation plan that proposes 42 miles of paved paths from the park’s south boundary to Colter Bay Village.

The $45 million path system would include 23 miles from the park’s south boundary to String Lake, 16 miles between North Jenny Lake and Colter Bay, and three miles along Moose-Wilson Road from the Granite Canyon entrance station to the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve. Officials estimate the pathway system will cost more than $550,000 a year to maintain.

An environmental impact statement analyzing the plan also contemplates setting aside $100,000 for a transit business plan that could mean a bus system for the park in the future. The Department of the Interior and the Department of Transportation announced a $100,000 grant for the business plan last August.

Conservation groups and environmentalists had mixed reactions to the plan. Some said the pathways would reduce motor vehicle use in the park while others said the plan goes too far, hurting wildlife habitat and putting visitors at risk of contact with wild animals.

David Axelrad, whose 13-year-old daughter Gabriella Axelrad died after a car hit her as she was cycling through Grand Teton National Park in July 1999, said the plan comes as a relief. The Axelrad family has joined an annual ride to commemorate their daughter and to lobby for a path system in the park for the past seven years. Axelrad is one of two cyclists killed by vehicles in the park in recent years.

“I am extremely excited and pleased,” Axelrad said. “It’s just a giant step toward the day when both cyclists and pedestrians can enjoy the park in complete safety. I’m looking forward to ... actually being able to put the shovel in the ground to get started on the pathways. This is a very, very significant step.”

David Vandenberg, spokesman for Friends of Pathways, said that, although the plan came up short of the option his group had recommended, he was pleased with the decision.

“We certainly applaud Grand Teton National Park for the vision of this final transportation plan,” Vandenberg said. “They embraced the merits of a nonmotorized pathway network.”

Vandenberg said that a monitoring system designed to keep tabs on how the construction affects wildlife during the early phases of the project should help alleviate some concerns that conservationists have about animals like grizzly bears and wolves. “I think the park has provided the correct framework for monitoring and analyzing their first miles of pathways,” he said.

However, wildlife concerns will still play a roll in the future of the park. Though the environmental impact statement is complete, the Park Service will begin a 120-day consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because the project may affect grizzlies and wolves, which are both protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Tim Young, spokesman for the National Parks Conservation Association, said paths through the most sensitive grizzly habitat, such as a section from North Jenny Lake to Colter Bay, would remain in the existing road corridors. Less sensitive areas would see pathways from 50 feet to 150 feet from the road.

“They are trying to minimize, to the greatest extent possible, impacts to park resources,” Young said.

But some wildlife experts disagree. Louisa Willcox, wild bears project director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that in a park as small as Grand Teton, every acre counts when it comes to preserving bear habitat. Further, Willcox said she also has concerns about human safety.

“Historically, what we’ve been concerned with is the potential for accidents, mountain bikers brushing into bears and other wildlife,” she said. The road from North Jenny Lake to Colter Bay is known for grizzly sightings, she said.

“The Moose-Wilson Road corridor is a pretty critical area, too,” she said.

Franz Camenzind, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, also expressed worries about the environmental study.

“We’re very disappointed with it,” he said. “What they have outlined is 50.9 acres of pavement in a national park, with another 82.9 acres that’s going to be disturbed, devegetated.”

“We’re also extremely concerned with the decision for the Moose-Wilson Road,” Camenzind said. “In fact, part of the pathway will cut across new ground to connect to the levee system and, ultimately, to the Rockefeller Preserve, thereby fragmenting some of the most diverse and rich habitat in the south end of the valley.”

Camenzind said that between 17,000 and 23,000 trees will be removed from Grand Teton National Park during the project. “It seems to me this community is in an out-of-control rage to pave over paradise,” he said.

After the 120-day consultation with Fish and Wildlife, Grand Teton officials will move toward creating a record of decision in January. A record of decision will then trigger the start of the design and engineering process with construction scheduled to start in 2008.

The first phase would place a pathway from Dornan’s, near Moose, to South Jenny Lake Junction. The transit business plan would be developed at this time.

The second phase would run from South Jenny Lake to String Lake and would include the realigning of the north end of Moose-Wilson Road. Park spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo said the realignment would take the road out of an important wetland area. The second phase also would start implementation of a pilot mass transportation system.

Phase three would see construction of a path from the park’s south boundary near the National Fish Hatchery several miles north of Jackson to Antelope Flats, just beyond Moose.

The fourth phase of the project would run a path from North Jenny Lake to Colter Bay, while the fifth phase would place a path from the Granite Canyon park entrance to the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve.

Anzelmo said the success of the project is contingent upon obtaining funding in the future. U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., has secured $9 million for the project from Congress thus far.

“My hope is that visitors will be able to experience the beauty of Grand Teton in a safe manner without having to be behind the windshield of a vehicle,” he said in a statement.

The plan will be available on the Web at  parkplanning.nps.gov and Grand Teton National Park’s Web site at www.nps.gov/archive/grte/plans/planning.htm.

Compact discs of the final plan/environmental impact statement will be available at the Moose Visitor Center in the park, or at the reference desk in Teton County Library beginning Monday. A limited number of reference copies will be available for checkout and return from the library’s reference desk. For further information on the plan and how to comment on it, call (307) 739-3410.