The Partnership's Count: Thirty-Four Planned, Twenty-Four Connected, Seventeen Named

The partnership's accounting, 2020; the friends group's count, 2026

Three numbers: Three published numbers describe this trail system, and all three are true of different things. The Indiana Michigan River Valley Trail partnership — the cities, townships, counties, and park departments along the river in two states — publishes the goal: a 34-mile trail connecting Niles, Michigan, to Mishawaka, Indiana, through four downtowns (Niles, Roseland, South Bend, and Mishawaka), sixteen parks, and four universities. Its own accounting of the Indiana side lists Mishawaka's six-mile downtown trail loop along the river, the extension of the East Bank Trail through Indiana University South Bend, South Bend's Riverside Trail at 2.5 miles, St. Joseph County's Darden Road Trail, new sidewalks along SR 933 between the East Bank Trail and the Roseland Trail, 1.1 miles of Northside Trails through River Park connecting the South Bend and Mishawaka systems, and about 4.5 miles of connecting off-road trail around the University of Notre Dame and along SR 23 — with Niles Township's 3.3 miles running north from the state line, its first phase opened with a ribbon cutting on 9 August 2014, and the City of Niles' 2.25 miles completed in 2010. Of the joint at the state line itself, the partnership states plainly: "The connection between the Michigan and Indiana trail systems at the state line is now complete."

The Friends of Berrien County Trails, the partnership-side friends group, counts what a rider can actually ride today: the trail "currently connects Michiana communities with 24 miles of multi-use trail," running from the Mishawaka Riverwalk to an endpoint around Plym Park and the YMCA in Niles — with an eight-mile extension north to Berrien Springs in view, a one-mile section north of Plym Park cleared environmentally in January 2026 with construction expected late in 2026 or early in 2027, and a proposed 1,300-foot pedestrian bridge over Lake Chapin in development. The third count belongs to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's TrailLink database, which sums only the named paved segments: 17 miles in total, Michigan section and LaSalle, Riverside, East Bank, Northside, and West Bank segments together. Thirty-four is the plan, twenty-four is the connection, seventeen is the named pavement. This section prints all three and adds none of them up into a fourth.

Sources:

1. Indiana Michigan River Valley Trail partnership accounting, published by the City of Niles, map dated September 2020 (the 34-mile goal; the Indiana-side components and their lengths; the 2010 and 2014 Michigan-side completions; the state-line connection).
2. Friends of Berrien County Trails, berrientrails.org (the 24 connected miles as published in 2026; the Berrien Springs extension, the January 2026 clearance, and the Lake Chapin bridge proposal).
3. TrailLink (Rails-to-Trails Conservancy), the Indiana Michigan River Valley Trail's segment pages (the 17 paved miles in named segments — a cross-check count, attributed).