Greenway links trail segments among 6 cities

STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER
Rogers Planning Director Steve Glass (left) and Rogers Parks & Recreation director Barney Hayes discuss the "bridge to the future" on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, located alongside I-540 in Rogers. The bridge is part of the Razorback Greenway.
STAFF PHOTO JASON IVESTER Rogers Planning Director Steve Glass (left) and Rogers Parks & Recreation director Barney Hayes discuss the "bridge to the future" on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, located alongside I-540 in Rogers. The bridge is part of the Razorback Greenway.

— It used be known as the “bridge to nowhere.”

Two years ago, Rogers installed a 180-foot pedestrian bridge off Interstate 540 just west of the Pinnacle Hills Promenade shopping center.

The plan was for the span to become part of the Rogers trail system.

Nothing happened until this summer, when work around the bridge began through a federal economic stimulus program known as TIGER II. The acronymstands for Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic Recovery, and the funding comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

When it is finished this fall, the bridge and the area around it will become a link on the Razorback Regional Greenway, a 36-mile trail connecting trail systems in six cities in Benton and Washington counties.

Regional planners now are calling it the “bridge to the future.”

The progress on the bridge project is a symbol ofthe march toward the greenway’s completion scheduled for the end of 2013, said Barney Hayes, director of the Rogers Parks Department.

“It’s probably the most visible section of the Razorback Regional Greenway,” Hayes said. “The bridge is the centerpiece of the greenway system. This is the centerpiece that will get people’s attention, not just for the people of Rogers but for the entire area.”

Work is also under way about a mile north in Rogers on another greenway trailhead at New Hope Road. It’ll cost about $1 million to complete the two segments in Rogers, said John McLarty, assistant director of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, which is serving as administrator of the project.

“We’re making substantial progress on construction,” McLarty said. “Those two pieces tie existing trails to the north and south.”

When it is finished, the greenway will stretch from south Fayetteville to north Bentonville, and much of the trail in those two cities is already done.

Planners hope it will serve as a “spine” for a network of paved trails throughout Northwest Arkansas.

“Greenways” are strips of undeveloped land that are set aside for recreational use or environmental protection.

The swaths can follow natural boundaries such as creeks or manmade paths such as abandoned railroad beds and utility corridors. Like the Razorback Regional Greenway, most such corridors include trails.

Bentonville and Fayetteville have been building paved trails for about a decade, long before the concept of the Razorback Greenway came up a couple of years ago.

The bulk of work yet to be done is in a 16-mile section from New Hope Road to Lake Fayetteville near the Springdale-Fayetteville border.

“We’re building it in phases so it’s going to look a little choppy to folks for a while,” said Chuck Flink, president of Alta/Greenways, a Durham, N.C. firm that is the design consultant for the Planning Commission.

“The completion of those two segments at Pinnacle Hills are very important,” he said. “It’s a pretty exciting time for trail users in Northwest Arkansas because they are going to have a lengthy segment of trail from Rogers up to Bella Vista.”

The final leg of Bentonville’s portion of the greenway is under construction. The Wishing Springs Trail will connect the North Bentonville Trail to the Lake Bella Vista Trail with a pedestrian walkway under Interstate 540, said David Wright, the city’sparks and recreation director.

The trail is being built by the Bentonville/Bella Vista Trailblazers Association and will be deeded to the city once finished, Wright said.

“In Bentonville, our trail system gets so much use,” Wright said. “Bentonville has really become a very fit community, and I think our trails system has a lot to do with that.”

MAJOR PROJECT

The greenway is notable for its length and price tag, Flink said.

“It’s one of the biggest regional greenway projects in the United States today,” he said. “When you look at the number of dollars being applied to it, it is significant. It’s a big deal.”

Out of more than 1,000 applications, the Razorback Regional Greenway was one of 42 capital projects to receive a $15 million grant in2010.

The TIGER II grant program was established through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville is matching the grant with $3.75 million, McLarty said.

The foundation also is making a total of $11.25 million in grants to the cities and another $8 million needs to be raised for amenities such as trailheads and lighting, he said.

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, who represents Northwest Arkansas in Congress, said the greenway represents an advantage of leveraging public dollars with private funds.

“It’s a credit to the region that it would have the vision and forethought” to develop the greenway, said Womack, a Republican and former mayor of Rogers.

“It’s a quality-of-life amenity that a lot of communities are doing across the country,” he said.

Springdale recently received a $400,000 grant from the federal TransportationDepartment for a new Sanders Avenue trailhead to provide bicycle and pedestrian access to the greenway.

Patsy Christie, Springdale’s planning and community development director, said the greenway has become a popular topic in her city.

Residents who once opposed the greenway now are longing for it to be finished so they can use it, Christie said.

“The perception is getting better, it really is,” she said. “We have some gorgeous sections to do, and I’m ready to start. Things are coming together really well. Hopefully by this time next year we’ll be walking on trails in Springdale.”

The greenway is integral to Springdale’s downtown, Christie said. The city recently installed concrete sections on Emma Avenue that will become part of the greenway.

Renovations are under way at Shiloh Square, an area in downtown bordered by Emma to the south, Johnson Avenue to the north, Spring Street to the east and Mill Street to the west.

“The Razorback Greenway goes through the heart of downtown,” Christie said, “and Springdale is the heart of the greenway.”

Christie said the greenway couldn’t have happened if the cities didn’t come together for a common goal.

Celia Scott-Silkwood, a planner at the Planning Commission, said the project has become a “large, regional, cooperative effort.”

“All of the communities that are on the Razorback Regional Greenway have committed to improving the trails in their cities and using this as the backbone,” she said.

Lowell Mayor Eldon Long compared the greenway to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill.

Where the airport connected the region to the rest of the U.S., “this trail system is going to connect the communities in Northwest Arkansas in a way that we have all looked forward to,” he said.

‘GREAT ATTRACTION’

The greenway’s route was designed to link popular community destinations, such as schools, parks, downtowns, hospitals and shopping areas.

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville will be on the greenway. So will the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

The corporate headquarters for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. in Lowell and Tyson Foods Inc. in Springdale will all be connected to the trail.

Flink said the greenway construction has spurred economic development in the region through its construction, and he foresees the project paying economic dividends in the long run, too.

He predicts specialty shops and restaurants will pop up on its route. Tourists to the area will want to use the greenway, he said.

“This is a great attraction,” he said. “We feel like it is a quality-of-life improvement but it’s also an important part of economic development and job creation.”

McLarty agreed.

“There’s a strong economic case for greenways,” he said. “We really see it as not only benefiting the citizens of Northwest Arkansas but for people visiting here.”

Matt Mihalevich, trailscoordinator for the city of Fayetteville, said he hears from people who have either relocated to Northwest Arkansas or are considering moving here, and they ask about trails.

There are bicycle enthusiasts who travel across the country looking for places to ride and the greenway probably will be on their list, he said.

Fayetteville is currently in the design process for a halfmile trail that will cross over Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, connecting the Walker Park neighborhood to the trail system, Mihalevich said.

The south end of the regional trail will be at Walker Park, he said.

“It’ll be incredible for the region and Fayetteville,” he said. “You’ve got an amenity that is free, and you don’t have to get a membership for it.”

Alan Ley, director of outreach and advocacy for the nonprofit organization Bike Bentonville, said the greenway is “going to open a whole new world for people to ride their bikes.”

“This greenway is just going to open up more opportunities for families and kids and our communities to go back and forth and visit each other,” Ley said. “I think it’s going to be incredible.” To contact this reporter:

[email protected]

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 08/19/2012

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