As he prepares to retire, Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines reflected Wednesday on several projects along the Arkansas River that he helped orchestrate and that he said have united the county.
Villines said at the Old State House Museum's Brown Bag Lunch Lecture that he believed Little Rock would eventually secure the land behind Dillard's headquarters to complete the Arkansas River Trail loop.
"There'll be nothing like it," he told a crowd of a little more than a dozen people.
After an audience member said gaining the necessary land behind the Dillard's property seemed "insoluble," Villines said the city would have to change the company's mind about the potential value of the trail.
"I think they can get it done," he said. "I hope they can get it done."
Officials throughout the county have made efforts in recent years to separate the River Trail from city streets, including a $1.1 million overpass project approved last year to connect the end of a trail just west of the Broadway Bridge to the Dillard's headquarters. Without approval from Dillard's to build the rest of the trail, however, cyclists will still have to ride along Cantrell Road.
Villines recalled starting these projects with the Verizon Arena, which opened as Alltel Arena in 1999. Along with it, he and city officials decided to connect the arena to more downtown projects and a trail system that later came into fruition as the Arkansas River Trail.
When officials wanted to extend the trail and link it on the west end, they built the Big Dam Bridge, which has since been accompanied by the Two Rivers Park Bridge.
The Big Dam Bridge project has attracted tourists, helped people get healthier and gathered people of all backgrounds in the county in one place, Villines said.
"You can't connect to people when you're driving," he said.
Some people opposed the bridge's construction in the mid-2000s, but Villines said he thinks the bridge has proved its own worth since then. The Big Dam Bridge, which cost $12.8 million to build in 2006, has 250,000 users per year, Villines said.
Villines said he hopes whoever is elected as the new county judge will continue efforts to expand bicycling opportunities in the county.
"You've done so, so much," Judy Lansky, an audience member and vice president of Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas, said to Villines.
Metro on 09/11/2014