SPRINGDALE — Building trails and improving old ones hiked up the to-do list at the city.
The City Council on Tuesday approved budgets for two new trails, picked an engineering firm to design one and decided the Public Works Department would install lights and street crossings for others.
Installing 45 trail lights in J.B. Hunt Park and three downtown street crossings will be done only for the cost of material. Council members agreed the city could save money by having the city employees do the work.
Thirteen small construction jobs Public Works planned for the summer would be put up for bid, said Rick Evans, an alderman.
“We think the cost for all these small projects would be $50,000 to $60,000,” Evans said. “We would save thousands of dollars.”
Keeping the trail work in house would cost the city $30,000 for material. That expense plus the cost to farm out the small projects would be far less than the $165,000 bid the city received for the trail improvement.
The J.B. Hunt Park trail lights, on low posts called bollards, would cover about half of the trail in the park, said Alan Pugh, chief engineering coordinator.
The street crossings would be at Meadow, Emma and Johnson avenues along the Razorback Greenway, Pugh said.
The greenway is a 36-mile trail being built from south Fayetteville to Lake Bella Vista.
The crossings on Meadow and Emma would be similar to one installed on a Fayetteville trail crossing North Street. It would include a raised section of street to slow traffic.
The difference would be LED lights installed in the pavement. The lights would flash when someone using the trail approached the crossing, Pugh said. The lights would be powered by solar panels.
The Johnson crossing wouldn’t have a raised section, but would include the lights, Pugh said.
The crossing lights, as well as the bollard lights, were purchased with a $657,100 grant from the federal Department of Energy. The grant also paid for energy efficient lighting in Shiloh Square and along Emma Avenue, as well as electricity-generating wind turbines at the square and in Hunt Park. Solar panels at the park also were purchased with the grant.
The city also received grants to build the trails that will branch off the Razorback Greenway. The Meadow Street Trail will allow users to cut east on Meadow Avenue and rejoin the greenway on Park Street.
“If people choose not to go through a tunnel on the greenway, or if the tunnel is flooded, Meadow would allow them to bypass it,” said Patsy Christie, director of planning and community development.
The greenway path runs along Spring Creek, parallel to Meadow.
The Shiloh Trail would continue along Spring Creek, where the greenway heads south on Park Street. It would turn north when it reaches the Springdale Airport and cross Emma Avenue to the Jones Center.
By The Numbers
Springdale Trails
Cost of Shiloh and Meadow trails could decrease if bids are lower than expected. The grant used at Hunt Park also paid for additional equipment.
Grant Amount City’s Cost
Shiloh Trail $270,000 $302,370
Meadow Trail $50,000 $62,319
Hunt Park and Crossings $657,100 $30,000
Source: City of Springdale