This year marks 10 years of the Razorback Greenway. The 40-mile paved trail runs from south Fayetteville north into Bella Vista and serves as a corridor for cycling and recreation in the region. But the folks at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission are hoping that this first decade of Greenway is just the beginning.
Back in May, the Regional Planning Commission, in conjunction with the Walton Family Foundation, produced a survey to better understand how Greenway is being used and where there is room for smart growth.
Tim Reavis is the multimodal transportation planner for the commission. He says some elements of the survey were unsurprising, like the answer for how Greenway is primarily used.
“Ninety-one percent of people primarily use Greenway for recreation. So for the last 10 years, it's been a great outdoor amenity for Northwest Arkansas. As we look forward into what the trail can become, we think it can be a lot more.”
Reavis and his team used the results from the survey to build out a Corridor Plan and a vision for the next 25 years. One area of improvement: working to provide branches and loops to the Greenway. Reavis says this lack of connectedness is playing a role in the data point that just 15% of people use the Razorback Greenway primarily as a way of commuting to work or school.
“We're going to need to make new connections to the Greenway, to neighborhoods. We see really a pretty good example of this in Rogers with the Railyard Loop. There's a loop that connects Rogers downtown to Rogers uptown, where the Greenway runs through.
“And this is not really a new idea, but we've been able to flesh it out a little bit more of, ‘Hey, each city could use a loop, a commuter loop similar to the Railyard Loop.’ And this would bring in a lot more neighborhoods, a lot more people, a lot more jobs to this network that's available. Increasing connectivity to the Greenway is going to be done by connecting more neighborhoods where people live to the bike network.
Another priority of the plan involves creating new neighborhoods along the Greenway.
Reavis says one of those challenges is that more than 60% of the trail sits within floodplains, but there’s still plenty of room for responsible growth.
“There's 5,000 acres of zero improvement parcels. So when we talk about the need for housing and where it's going to go, there is opportunity within the Greenway’s immediate corridor.”
As for the portions in a floodplain, Reavis says they are working on a way to sustainably manage stormwater with what he calls sponge parks.
“Think about there’s a really low point where a creek is crossing the Greenway. There are ways to create some co-benefits at this crossing between the Greenway and the creek. We’ve seen examples of this in other places that control stormwater. It’s designed and built to flood in big rain events, and it allows for development around the park.
“So instead of each of these properties having to account for their own on-site drainage, it's a communal stormwater management facility that allows for more development along the trail. When it's not a flood event, it's a public park. So we're seeing the benefit of stormwater management, and we're seeing the benefit of a public open space where people can gather, and that serves as a destination along the trail.”
He says the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission is proud of the progress they’ve made on the Razorback Greenway just 10 years in.
“During the planning process for the corridor, we've looked around the country at other trail systems and trail networks, and we really are ahead of the curve on having a 40-mile spine built and on the ground. We can be really proud of that.
“As we look toward the future. We have a lot that we can do, and we've identified a lot of that in this process. I'm excited about what each of the cities are going to be able to tackle on their own as they work together in a community to make the Greenway more active and more attractive in each of their cities.”
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