LITTLE ROCK — Curious folks who take the lollipop trail at Two Rivers Park hoping to see how construction’s coming on that new bridge to span the Little Maumelle River will find a long orange barricade blocking their way.
Earlier warnings erected by Little Rock city workers apparently didn’t stop people from biking and running on the closed loop of the park’s first paved trail. The loop is flagged off because it’s a heavy machinery staging area and unsafe, Little Rock Parks and Recreation Director Truman Tolefree said.
“We’ve gotten a couple of reports that people have been violating the caution area signage and barriers that we had up there,” Tolefree said.
Tuesday, trail users found the barricade extended and reinforced.
Orange net is wired across the paved path and more than 20 feet off to the side - covering a set of tire tracks through the dirt which apparently had been misinterpreted as an approved detour onto the northern side of the closed loop. Each end of the net is tied to thickly branched trees so you would have to snuggle up to pine boughs to edge around or wade through underbrush that’s hip deep with ticks.
A red-striped sawhorse stands in front of the netting, and the path is flanked by two extra tall street signs that say, “Notice: Trail closed.”
All this is about 1.2 miles along the park’s original 3-mile paved path from its “You are here” sign on County Farm Road. Which means trail users can get a 2.4-mile workout if they obey the barricade and double back.
Nonetheless, a cyclist taking pictures in front of the netting last week was asked by two runners if it was OK to go around the barricade and use the loop.
“It’s not really a safe thing to do and for sure we would love for people not to do it,” Tolefree said. “It was put there for safety, as a precautionary measure for the park users. The bridge itself probably will not be completed until some time between March and April of next year. It’s our hope that everyone would observe the barricade.”
With about 1,000 acres jointly administered by Little Rock and Pulaski County, Two Rivers Park lies to the west of the Interstate 430 bridge on a spit of sand between the Arkansas and Little Maumelle rivers. The peninsula was once the county penal farm; now it’s home to a large herd of whitetail deer that fearlessly share paved and dirt trails with equestrians, skaters, runners, walkers and cyclists.
Pulaski County is creating a tree and wildflower park there.
Pulaski County Public Works has photos and videos tracking the bridge progress on its Facebook page.
ActiveStyle, Pages 27 on 09/27/2010