While Lewiston is talking about future plans for a river trail along Lincoln Street, it’s gone after state funding for one from Sunnyside Park to Tall Pines Drive.

Known as the Riverside Greenway Project, it would stretch about 7,000 feet — about 1.3 miles — along the Androscoggin, following a 1970s sewer access road that’s already a popular, informal walking spot, City Engineer Rick Burnham said.

“Besides being recreational, it’s one of the few trails that actually connects residential with business,” he said.

It starts at Sunnyside Park, which is bordered by Avon, Winter and Summer streets and Riverside Cemetery, and follows the river to Tall Pines Drive, not far from Marden’s. The project ties into the ambitious East Coast Greenway, a Key West-to-Canada trail system.

Lewiston applied for funding for the approximately $2 million project before the Maine Department of Transportation’s July 1 deadline, now vying for funding with 44 other communities.

MDOT has paid out $50,000 for a project study and $150,000 for design work and acquiring property, a work in progress, Burnham said.

“You could walk it today,” he said. “The location is going to be tweaked here and there — excavating and putting in gravel, fencing, erosion control.”

Construction could take place in 2012.

Jonathan LaBonte, executive director of the Androscoggin Land Trust and an advocate for the Lincoln Street bike and pedestrian path, said that if both Lincoln Street and the Riverside projects go through, they would combine with some roadway to create 7 miles of bike-ped path.

Dan Stewart, who oversees DOT’s bike-ped work, said communities put in requests for $35 million worth of projects. Site visits are going on now, with funding decisions due around March.

kskelton@sunjournal.com