Two final pieces to complete 12-mile bicycle, pedestrian loop in Fayetteville

FAYETTEVILLE -- The city could have its longest loop for bicyclists and pedestrians by early 2023.

Two pieces remain to connect Wilson Park to neighborhoods near Joyce Boulevard on the northeast part of town. The City Council on Tuesday accepted a $385,000 Walton Family Foundation grant to spruce up bicycle and pedestrian paths on Prospect Street, Park Avenue, Trenton Boulevard and Rebecca Street near Wilson Park.

The city also hired Crafton Tull to design a trail along Mission Boulevard from Rebecca Street east of College Avenue to Old Wire Road. Construction of that trail piece should begin next year and wrap by the start of 2023, said Matt Mihalevich, the city's trails coordinator.

Four other sections of existing trail complete the 12-mile loop. The Old Wire Cycle Track at the east side of Old Wire Road turns into the Niokaska Creek Trail once it hits Gulley Park. The Niokaska Creek Trail becomes Mud Creek Trail at Old Missouri Road, heading west. South from there, the loop is Scull Creek Trail, which doubles as the Razorback Greenway, all the way back to the Razorback-Mission Connector starting at Prospect Street near Wilson Park.

The city has other trail loops. The one around Lake Fayetteville, for instance, is about 5½ continuous miles. Another trail connection under construction at the Tsa La Gi Trail south of the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Razorback Road intersection will create a 5-mile loop through student housing, the University of Arkansas and Fayetteville High School campuses on the south part of town.

Once finished, the 12-mile loop will serve as the longest continuous circular route in the city, Mihalevich said.

"As we build out this network, we're looking for those opportunities where we can create those loops that people really like for recreation and transportation," he said.

The Razorback-Mission Connector from Prospect Street crossing College Avenue to Rebecca Street won't be a solid, paved trail. Prospect Street and Park Avenue near Wilson Park will have improved sidewalks and newly painted on-street bicycle pathways, with wheelchair-accessible ramps at crosswalks. Trenton Boulevard will have a concrete trail on its north side raised 3 inches above the street asphalt. The trail will feed into the existing lighted pedestrian and bicycle crosswalk at College Avenue on Rebecca Street. East of College Avenue, Rebecca Street will get signs and bicycle symbols painted on the street.

Aaron Randall lives near Prospect Avenue east of College Avenue. He and his two sons -- Cyrus, 9, and Niko, 8 -- started riding bikes together a couple of years ago. The group recently took a trip from their house west to Wilson Park, up the Razorback Greenway to Lake Fayetteville and eventually down along Old Wire Road. The sections that aren't finished were the most difficult, he said.

"To me, it kind of ties the picture together pretty well as far as the safety and more user friendly aspects of it," Randall said.

Randall said he was especially excited about the improvements coming to the sections near Wilson Park. That part of the route has some sidewalks and bicycle lanes marked already, but the proposed work will fill in gaps that will make the experience much more pleasant, he said.

The two Randall boys are competitive. Having the loop completed will provide a new course for them to see who can ride farther without getting off their bike to walk. The family also likes to ride south near the Mill District to stop at Wood Stone Craft Pizza or even farther to Kessler Mountain.

Randall said he thinks finishing the loop might also persuade more people coming from the north who would normally get in a car to go to Wilson Park or other destinations to opt for a bicycle instead. It's a sort of "if you build it, they will come" mentality, he said.

"One of the reasons we got out in the first place was to explore and see what it was all about. The kids obviously liked it, so we kept doing it," Randall said. "Maybe they can call it the 'Trail of Dreams' or something."

The Razorback-Mission Connector route was included in Toole Design Group's 2019 Targeted Bicycling Priority Network report commissioned by the Northwest Arkansas Council. The stretch of about 3,300 feet serves as a vital connector between the two major pathways at the Razorback Greenway east to Mission Boulevard, according to the report.

The next piece will be about 1½ miles of trail on the west side of Mission Boulevard from Rebecca Street to Old Wire Road. Plans at one point included a roundabout at North Street and Mission Boulevard, but that plan was scrapped, Mihalevich said. Study showed a roundabout wouldn't improve traffic flow much; plus, resident feedback on it was overwhelmingly negative, he said.

Instead, the city plans to have the trail cross Mission from west to east at North Street with some improvements made to the traffic signal to help bicyclists and pedestrians get across, Mihalevich said. The trail can connect to the Old Wire Cycle Track on the east side, he said.

"On North Street, the historic district grid is really conducive to connecting people, and it gives people options," Mihalevich said. "They can veer off Mission and head into the grid of streets like Rebecca, which will have the on-street bikeway."

Estimated cost of the Mission Boulevard trail piece is $1.5 million. Money will come from a combination of the city's annual trails construction fund and the trails bond issue voters approved in the April 2019 election, Public Works Director Chris Brown said.