Letters to the editor

Thank you, trail builders!

LITTLE ROCK — Growing up in Fayetteville, we kids traveled everywhere by foot or bike - school, church, sports, movies, shopping, Scouts, swimming, fishing. Fayetteville was compact, and most kids within walking distance of anything walked. It was idyllic. During 14 years away I yearned to raise children with such freedom. So, in 1981, I returned to raise my family.

But no longer could we walk or bike much of anywhere. Wherever we looked, Fayetteville had become a commuter suburb of itself, requiring driving. Though still a vibrant college town, its identity as a connected place where one could safely get anywhere without strapping into tons of environmentally draining steel was gone.

Recently, apprised of the new bike trail, my wife and I invested in bikes at Wal-Mart. Not a studied decision (for less than a bigcity dinner), I bought the cherry red Schwinn with chrome fenders which I coveted, unfulfilled, at the age of 12. Anne chose a pretty silver thing (everyday low price). If a bust, we'd Craigslist them and consider the loss a day's recreation.

Well, we're keeping the bikes. We navigated the trail on a leisurely morning ride from its Sixth Street south end to its Paradise Valley Golf Course north end and home again, visiting the Farmers' Market en route. It was a total, wonderful epiphany.

Now, without fighting urban congestion, we bike a scenic woodland trail to Fayetteville venues I've shunned for years, thus avoiding traffic, signals, congestion and parking. The mall? A 30-minute pedal from our historic district home. Steele Crossing's retail and restaurants? Just 20 minutes along clear, burbling creeks. Wal-Mart?About the same, sans traffic and signals, with parking literally at the front door. And south at Maple Street there's a restaurant for every day of the week.

Fayetteville uses this trail! Our first day we shared it with folks on expensive bikes and matching gear; folks in worn T-shirts, jeans and matching bikes; babes in arms, whole families, couples of all ages, students, lots of dogs; a disabled peddler on a large tricycle accommodating her disabilities; obese people huffing and puffing towards health, and trim athletes whizzing by - all in a rainbow of ethnicities. We even passed a very elderly gentleman going slow but steady with his walker. Wow!

It is, indeed, Fayetteville's trail. We now want two more bikes for our visiting out-of-town kids and friends to ride to help showoff Fayetteville's new gem.

So thanks to everyone: Dreamers proposing, civic volunteers advancing, elected officials funding, city staff planning, contractors building, and taxpayers paying for this trail - and the surprisingly polite motorists yielding at crossings! Thanks for ordinances requiring bike racks and their owners installing them; we're parking our bikes there to spend our retail dollars with you. If there's anybody I left out, thank you, too, because it is simply a wonderful asset to this town, and all of its very diverse populace.

Thanks for a trail that brings back small-town Fayetteville!
Jack Butt / Fayetteville

I'm thinking split campus

Here's an idea for the Fayetteville High School: Build another school on another site.

It would be most cost effective to build on property already owned, like the site on DeaneSolomon Road. At that school site build a large auditorium for performing arts and a new gym. Leave the football stadium and track at the current site. When the new school is ready, turn the high school into a split campus with ninth grade and sophomores at the current high school, and then move juniors and seniors to the new site.

Because the new school would house half the students, it would be a smaller facility. Because this possibility would be using the current site, it would not be wasting the energy and materials that went into building the current school (embodied energy) and would give 100 percent value for it rather than a potential 100 percent loss of value.

For instance, if the school board thought the current site was worth $60 million and asked for $113 million for a new campus on the same site, now would we have a campus worth $173 million? No. We would not only totally loose the value of the current site, but it would cost more to build because they would be trying to make sense out of a cluster of chaos.

A split campus may involve bussing athletics and band first and last periods, but it would probably take about $60 million off the price tag and add back in value of $60 million for the current site for a total of $120 million to the better. That could pay for a lot of transit. Plus, it would not disrupt the student's learning environment while construction was taking place, it could happen faster (lessening the high probability for increased cost and calamity), the sports teams would be the same, and the classes could bond better.

And for those who will ask then why didn't I speak up before, I did.
Paula Marinoni / Fayetteville