Biking enthusiasts gathered last week to discuss how to build a temporary trail to connect the Razorback Greenway's trail end at Lake Bella Vista to the Blowing Springs trail system.
Nearly two dozen people, along with a contingent from the city administration attended the Sept. 28 meeting at Cooper Elementary School.
The section of biking and pedestrian trails will be temporary, but ultimately serve as a test bed. If it works well in the test configuration, it may become a permanent addition to the system.
The proposed temporary trail would run alongside the east edge of the Lake Bella Vista parking lot and cross over near the lot's exit, where it would run either alongside Veteran's Way (U.S. Highway 71) or behind the fenced parking lot, ultimately crossing Mercy Way and entering the Cooper Elementary School parking lot.
This is part of a series of projects. Bentonville and Rogers will also have similar short, temporary trails installed in time for the upcoming IMBA summit in November. Each project has a budget of $10,000 supplied by the Walton Family Foundation.
Tony Garcia, a representative of Florida-based consulting firm Street Plans Collaborative, calls this process tactical urbanism -- an approach where temporary, low-cost versions of features are put in place to ensure they're actually viable before spending a great deal of money and time on them.
"This is not just guerrilla style 'let's go out and make bike lanes,'" Garcia said. "This is all about things changing dramatically from today into next month."
The idea for this project, he said, is to use as many local, low-cost and borrowed materials as possible to fit into the project's budget.
"You'd be surprised at what people are willing to donate or give to you if you just tell them what you're doing," he said.
Chris Suneson, director of the city's Community Development Services, said that this process could provide benefits. For one, he said, it gives people the opportunity to become more heavily involved.
"That provides a sense of ownership in the project and a chance for the average citizen to say 'look what I helped make,'" he said.
As far as installing a temporary, low-cost feature, he said, this creates an opportunity for the city to save money on projects that might not turn out well after a substantial investment.
"It allows us to test ideas that may work and may not," he said. "We're experimenting here. It's a better idea to spend fewer dollars to test something. That tells us whether we should direct more dollars into it."
The meeting not only gave officials a chance to show the overall idea to the public, but to discuss it with them -- and look for anyone who might be able to volunteer their time or resources.
After discussing the ideas of tactical urbanism and this specific project, Garcia turned it over to the guests.
Each table formed into a group, and each group discussed specifics for the project -- whether the temporary trail should run alongside the old tennis courts or the road, whether the crossing into Cooper Elementary School's parking lot should be alongside the street or further down, whether road bikes could handle a gravel section, what to put in place to protect riders alongside the road and so on.
A relatively frequent suggestion was adding another pair of stop signs, turning the Dartmoor and Mercy Way intersection into a three-way stop, which could prevent people from turning before they look to see if anyone is in the new crosswalk.
Some groups discussed placing a barrier alongside the road, and what that barrier would be -- from planters to light, temporary bollards, short posts used to divert traffic from an area or road.
Seth Jacobs, the manager at GPP Cycling in Bella Vista, was involved in one table's discussion. He said this was an excellent opportunity for the community to discuss what exactly it wants to do.
"I think it's really cool," he said. "We're the people who are using these trails, we know what we want to see. And we get input from everyone -- road, mountain, walkers."
Paxton Roberts is the executive director for the Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks, an organization that is involved in this project.
Roberts said he was excited to see Bella Vista trying this out. This shows the city is willing to innovate, he said.
"This is really new and cutting edge in the planning world," he said.
He was also impressed, he said, with the level of community involvement.
So was Mayor Peter Christie.
"What I really liked about this is once they broke the ice," Christie said, "people really worked together. That's exactly what we're looking for."
General News on 10/05/2016