Commentary

REX NELSON: The cycling hub

On a Saturday in late October, dignitaries from Arkansas and Tennessee gathered on the Harahan Bridge over the Mississippi River at Memphis to celebrate the opening of the Big River Crossing. The pedestrian boardwalk allows cyclists and walkers to cross the river. The $18 million boardwalk, the longest of its kind in the country, was funded by federal, state and local government grants along with private contributions. Cyclists and walkers will share the bridge with Union Pacific freight trains.

"Unless you've been a train conductor, it's a view that you've not seen of downtown Memphis since 1949," Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said. "It's such a civic and cultural amenity for our current residents. I think it will draw tourists from all over the world."

"Thanks to visionary leadership, this project has put Memphis and east Arkansas squarely on the map of a rapidly growing national passion for bicycling, walking and other forms of outdoor recreation, ecotourism and physical fitness," says Doug Friedlander of Helena, who's leading a regional tourism initiative. "This unprecedented attraction was the impetus for the St. Francis Levee Board, which manages the levee from Mississippi County to Lee County, to approve the development of a bike trail atop the Mississippi River levee from the bridge's western terminus in West Memphis all the way to Marianna."

Three weeks after the event at Memphis, some of the world's best mountain bikers gathered on the other side of the state for the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) World Summit at Bentonville. The four-day summit, held every other year, began in 2004 and previous host cities include Whistler, British Columbia; and Steamboat Springs, Colo. With five mountain bike trails designated as "epic rides" by the IMBA, Arkansas and Colorado are tied behind only California in the number of trails. IMBA has listed Bentonville, Fayetteville and Hot Springs as "ride centers" and Northwest Arkansas has become the IMBA's first "regional ride center."

As one Arkansas cycling enthusiast put it, mountain biking and road cycling are "the new golf." Consider what Alabama did in creating the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, a collection of world-class courses, many of which have adjacent resort hotels. That effort put Alabama on the tourism map for thousands of wealthy Americans who never would have considered visiting the state otherwise. Arkansas wants to do that in the area of cycling. Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism are promoting the state as the "Cycling Hub of the South." Hutchinson created a Governor's Advisory Council on Cycling, and the Walton Family Foundation provided a $309,000 grant to IMBA to maintain the state's five "epic rides," which contain almost 200 miles of mountain biking trails. Arkansas is the only state to have full-time professional crews maintain such trails.

While the mountain biking focus is on areas in the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, the Delta provides some of the greatest potential. There are ongoing efforts to pave a route through the St. Francis National Forest from where the levee route ends at Marianna all the way to Helena. Several years ago, the state entered into an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to develop Mississippi River State Park in the St. Francis National Forest. The St. Francis is the only national forest that touches the Mississippi River.

There's also the ongoing development of Delta Heritage Trail State Park, which is being built in phases along 73 miles of right-of-way donated by Union Pacific to the state in 1992. This once was the route of the Missouri Pacific's Delta Eagle and passes through the most scenic areas of the Big Woods. This part of the state has the largest remaining segments of the Big Woods, a bottomland hardwood forest that once extended down both sides of the Mississippi River from Cairo, Ill., to New Orleans.

The Delta Heritage Trail starts one mile south of Lexa in Phillips County and extends to Cypress Bend in Desha County. The first hiking and biking segment opened in 2002 from Helena Junction near Lexa to Barton. Just more than 20 miles of the trail have been developed. Hutchinson and Kane Webb, the new director of the Department of Parks and Tourism, have ridden bikes on the trail and made its completion a priority. The southern terminus of the railroad right-of-way will connect with the Mississippi River levee, and the trail then will extend another 11 miles to historic Arkansas City.

Cyclists eventually should be able to cross the Mississippi River at Memphis and go all the way to Arkansas City. "Arkansas will be able to boast an extraordinary route that would allow the avid bicyclist to traverse nearly the entire length of Arkansas entirely on dedicated bicycle paths," says Friedlander. "It would be an astonishing jewel of an attraction truly worthy of the Natural State." Friedlander, who's also spearheading efforts to save the old U.S. 79 bridge over the White River at Clarendon for use by cyclists and hikers, envisions a "cascade of economic development for the struggling communities of rural eastern Arkansas in the form of restaurants, convenience stores, bicycle repair services and places for overnight accommodation."

With a popular governor and the Walton family on board, the effort to make Arkansas the "Cycling Hub of the South" just might succeed.

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the director of corporate community relations for Simmons First National Corp. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 11/30/2016

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