Saturday will be Arkansas River Trail Safety Day. No mishaps allowed.
No crashing, no burning, no dying. No running over old ladies with your bicycle, no knocking down old ladies on their bicycles. No “hiding” your keys on top of a tire, no keeling over from dehydration. No wading in the river.
Also, no bad manners, because they encourage dying. No cursing at horses, no letting your dog poo where it will, willy-nilly.
And wear a helmet - if you want in on the free goodies.
Watching … for good behavior … will be volunteers from Metroplan’s Arkansas River Trail Task Force and North Little Rock’s Fit 2 Live. From 10 a.m. to noon, they’ll be at the Big Dam Bridge and at Mayor’s Gate, that sliding metal grill at the bump between the Burns Park Soccer Complex and the great North-Shore field of hay.
“We will be giving out Fit 2 Live goodies when we see kids wearing helmets on the River Trail,” says Bernadette Gunn Rhodes, Fit 2 Live coordinator. “And I guess adults can have them too, if they’re wearing their helmets. We’ll be giving out the little Fit 2 Live blinky lights that are pretty popular, and just celebrating their good behavior.
“We’ll be holding signs with some key messages, like ‘Be polite, stay right’ and ‘Pass single file.’”
The Arkansas River Trail Task Force is a Metroplan-enabled committee of volunteers from government entities and interest groups that use the trail system. A free blinky light is as good a pretext as any for checking out its $24,500 website, arkansasrivertrail.org.
Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County shared the cost of the website. Jennifer Barbee Inc. of Dallas developed the site. Launched in December and maintained by Metroplan graphics specialist Lynn Bell, the site makes good use of Google maps.
As the homepage states, it’s a guide to the 34-mile route. But wait - there’s more. Click the toolbar header “Trails” to read about the Grand Loop of 88.5 miles of path, road and highway miles venturing into other counties.
A whole bunch of governmental entities signed a memorandum of understanding about all this grandness in June 2012. Little Rock, North Little Rock, Maumelle, Conway, Mayflower, Bigelow, Faulkner, Perry and Pulaski counties, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation and Parks and Tourism departments promised to work toward creating the big loop from the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge through Faulkner and Perry counties to the Toad Suck Bridge at Conway.
Already, hikers and cyclists with decent endurance might be able to take the trail from the presidential park all the way to Pinnacle Mountain State Park. (I say “might be” because whether you’ll arrive alive depends in part upon your ability to select a safe way out of downtown Little Rock. Bicycle advocates are eager to explain the hazards of Little Rock’s Cantrell Road section; more information is at facebook.com/CloseTheLoopRT.)
Trail mileage is just the beginning on arkansasrivertrail.org. Under “User info,” an interactive map (due for update soon) highlights bike repair kiosks, rental stores, restrooms, water fountains. Use your smart phone to see where you are in relation to them.
There’s also a growing calendar, which event planners could consult while selecting a date that won’t conflict with big happenings already on the schedule. To get your event on the calendar, e-mail [email protected].
To conduct an event (or complain about yard sale signs or report a dead deer), you need to know who is in charge. Maybe it’s Little Rock Parks and Recreation or maybe you need Pulaski County or Arkansas State Parks or the Big Dam Bridge Foundation, Corps of Engineers, North Little Rock Parks and Recreation, North Little Rock Visitors Bureau or the Clinton Presidential Center …
So look on the left side of the toolbar under “Events.” Pull down to “Jurisdiction map.” Up comes a color-coded map that neatly provides the proper contact. Sweet.
Ask Jacob Wells, director of the 3 Bridges Marathon(coming Dec. 28), how tricky it has been even to know how many permits and permissions might be needed for an event on the River Trail with its confusing network of jurisdictions. Now, thanks to arkansasrivertrail.org, planners can apply online under “Plan your event.”
Also under “User info” is the page “Trail Etiquette.” It is most marvelously bossy. Highlights:
Keep pets on a short leash and under control at all times. Always clean up after your pets.
Keep an eye on your children at all times.
Keep to the right side of the pathways, except when passing others.
When preparing to pass others, speak an audible warning in advance. Always pass on the left side, while leaving 2 feet of clearance.
Pedestrians always have the right of way. Groups should travel single-file to ensure that cyclists are able to pass.
When stopping, move off of the pavement so as not to impede passers-by. …
Wait. Why are there no exclamation points? Who left off the exclamation points?
ActiveStyle, Pages 24 on 06/24/2013