College Avenue to Eighth Street in November, and Caltrans is working on part of the bike path as it widens Highway 101 from Novato to Petaluma.

This summer, Sonoma County Regional Parks will construct a mile-long segment through Roseland south of Santa Rosa with federal funds and money from Santa Rosa's former redevelopment agency that the state agreed to release.

Recent action on the bike path has excited some cycling groups. In November, SMART awarded a contract to construct seven segments of trail, including three in Sonoma County. Those segments, including stretches in central and southwest Santa Rosa and Cotati, are not part of the federal environmental process that has delayed the rest of the path.

"This is extremely exciting," said Andy Peri, advocacy director for the Marin County Bicycle Coalition.Alex Loznak

Age: 22, Hometown: Oakland, OR

"We need to reduce carbon emissions now, in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The Federal Government's support for new fossil fuel infrastructure is fundamentally inconsistent with that goal."

Alex Loznak is a junior at Columbia University in New York City, with a major in Sustainable Development. He goes to college a long way from the Oregon farm that has been in his family for seven generations. His great, great, great, great grandmother, Martha Poindexter Maupin, founded the farm in 1868 (she was one of the first women in Oregon to own a ranch) after arriving in the area by way of the Oregon Trail. The Maupin Century Farm is a foundational piece of Alex's life and heritage. However, the drought