LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock is asking the federal government for $11.9 million to close the last remaining gap in the Arkansas River Trail, a $14.5 million section that bicyclists and city officials have said is needed to make the trail safer for commuters.
The federal transportation grant application, due Monday, came on the heels of a public hearing last week highlighting a 4,500-foot trail segment hugging the river bluffs just above the Arkansas River near the Dillard’s Inc. headquarters off Cantrell Road.
“It’s a challenging construction task and consequently more expensive than other parts of the trail,” said Jim McKenzie, director of Metroplan, a regional planning organization that made the application Friday on behalf of the city.
Nor does the city own any of the rights of way required for the trail, another major part of the total cost. Regardless, the agency has already drafted engineering designs to make the project as shovel ready as possible, McKenzie said.
The 14-mile Arkansas River Trail stretches from the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge in downtown Little Rock west to the Big Dam Bridge, where it crosses into North Little Rock and loops back toward downtown. But the missing link of the trail near Cantrell Road forces bicyclists and pedestrians to navigate a fivefoot sidewalk on the Cantrell Road bridge or the road itself. Some cyclists also use several city streets to detour around the busy roadway.
“I was nearly killed myself one time, and I nearly killed somebody myself,” said Marsha Guffey, a Metroplan research planner who helped with the grant proposal.
Guffey said she rarely rides along Cantrell Road out of concern for her safety and keeps an eye out for cyclists when she’s driving the route that many drivers use during daily commutes from west Little Rock to downtown offices.
Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas, an organization of area bicyclists, recently filmed what riders encounter in their detour around the trail gap and uploaded it to You Tube. The video, named Little Rock River Trail: Riding Past the Episcopal School, shows riders going against the traffic on one-way streets, riding on narrow sidewalks and taking sharp turns to follow pedestrian crossings.
“The current gap at Dillard’s and the Episcopal School effectively severs the River Trail, and blows a big honking hole into what has become a major attraction for the city and county,” the organization’s website says about the gap in the trail.
The federal grant would require a 20 percent match from the city, about $2.9 million.
Little Rock received $1.03 million from the state’s General Improvement Fund in 2005 to close the gap, but hasn’t been able to raise the rest of the money. The capital city would also use some of its new sales tax revenue to cover the city’s 20 percent match, according to a letter from Mayor Mark Stodola included in the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER Discretionary Grant program.
Stodola on Tuesday said he didn’t know how much sales tax revenue would be needed if recent engineering work would be counted toward the match.
Metroplan and the city could possibly hear back from the federal government by the end of the year.
“If we don’t [get the grant], then it will be a slower process,” Stodola said, with the city having to pursue donations and other grants or regular federal transportation funding over the course of the next decade.
The application comes the same week that the Arkansas River Trail was deemed as one of two Arkansas projects worthy of funding in America’s Great Outdoors Report, a national publication put out by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Two projects in each state are highlighted in the report developed from meetings with governors and others.
The projects were chosen for “their potential to conserve important lands and build recreation opportunities and economic growth for the surrounding communities ...,” according to a Tuesday news release from the U.S. Department of Interior.
The other Arkansas project involves extending the Delta Heritage Trail, a hiking and biking trail, from Helena to Arkansas City. Only 14 miles of the 73-mile trail is complete.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 11/02/2011