While work on the Shooting Star Trail isn’t slated to get underway until next year, a $433,000 extension to bring the Blazing Star Trail in Albert Lea a little closer to Austin is set to get underway soon.

Joel Wagar, area parks and trails supervisor with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said a contractor is scheduled to begin work after the harvest season this fall.

The contractor would construct the last two miles of the extension — starting in Hayward and going west to near Albert Lea Lake — while additional funding will still be necessary to connect the trail with a bridge over Albert Lea Lake.

The trail eventually is planned to cross the Albert Lea Lake adjacent to a Canadian Pacific Railroad bridge, then go through Hayward and extend to Austin to connect with the Shooting Star Trail.

Wagar said the state is looking into other funding options available to the DNR for this stretch, but the two miles of trail should be completed by mid-August 2015.

He said no specific route has been selected to extend the trail from Hayward to Austin, but he said there is a meeting scheduled later this month to discuss this aspect.

The 2014 state bonding bill included $2.16 million to extend the Shooting Star Trail from Rose Creek to Austin, but it won’t get underway until next spring.

The trail will leave Rose Creek and run along State Highway 56 before jutting west as a bike lane on County Road 58 and then turning north on 28th Street to connect to Austin near the Austin Country Club.

Once the trail reaches Austin, it would be about 20 miles long. A long-term goal is giving bicyclists the ability to ride from Albert Lea to the Mississippi River.