BLAZING A TRAIL
Greenway Trail moves into next phase
The creation of the Hot Springs Creek Greenway Trail more than 20 years ago has raised public consciousness about the stormwater-borne debris that can collect in the creek, which drains most of the city as it meanders along the north-south axis of the corporate limits.
The more than 2-mile shared-use asphalt trail has made the creek visible to the families that pad along it during the day, the dog walkers on the trail by sunrise and the fitness enthusiasts who jog and bike down it in the setting sun.
A quarter-mile extension is expected to be added by the end of the year, taking the trail from its current terminus at the Seneca-Adams street intersection to more than 800 feet south of the Golf Links Road bridge. The goal is to ultimately bring the trail to the creek’s mouth at Lake Hamilton.
“Hot Springs Creek was neglected at best and besmirched and badly treated at worst over the years,” said Ken Freeman, the city’s trails coordinator. “The trash downtown gets into the streets and drains and ends up down here. Hopefully, the more we develop the trail the more we can educate people about what happens to the stuff that they think just goes into the drain and goes away.”
The Utility Service Center Trail Phase 3 currently under construction will follow the creek as it flows away from the commercial areas near the trailhead at Transportation
Depot, revealing a sharp contrast to the creek’s upstream environs.
“You make a break from the industrial area, and all of a sudden you’re out,” Freeman said. “It’s relatively canopied and shady. I really like these rock faces here. Most people will be attracted to the sound and sight of water flowing over rock. That’s really appealing.”
A bridge will transition the trail to the Golf Links side of the creek at the start of the next phase, which will take the trail to the TV Hill Road area. Parks and Trails Director Jean Wallace told the Hot Springs Board of Directors earlier this month that the state Historic Preservation Program’s cultural resource study of the TV Hill leg was completed last month, allowing the city to begin acquiring property for the extension.
She said the study was the first required by any of the eight grants that have helped fund the trail. Freeman said as the trail gets closer to the creek mouth, the likelihood of it traversing a former American Indian settlement or encampment increases.
He and Wallace said erosion-control measures are in place for the Phase 3 construction. To limit soil disturbance, a treetop boardwalk will be built along the steep bank behind AA Storage. The 300-foot long Perma Trak Concrete Boardwalk System will be supported by micropiles drilled into the bedrock and feature an overlook.
“If we had tried to build the trail on the ground we would’ve had to do lots of cutting up here on the bank and make it unstable,” Freeman said. “We went with the boardwalk to basically keep us from having to fill any parts of the floodplain.
“Some of the micropiles will be built into the bank and won’t be sticking out much. Nearer the creek, they’ll be 7, 8,9 and 10 feet high. They’re small, so when water does get into those areas, they’ll provide little to no resistance.”
Phase 3 will transition back to ground level as it approaches and goes under the Golf Links bridge. A sidewalk connection north of the bridge will allow access from Golf Links.
Another small boardwalk immediately south of the bridge will span a storm-drain outlet.
“It just roars when it rains,” Freeman said. “It will be a scenic feature when water is flowing through here.”
The easement for the 28-inch wastewater gravity main paralleling the creek south of the bridge limited excavation work that concluded last month, giving general contractor Cate Inc. a relatively clear path to thread the trail base through the woods.
“(The easement) being here had already made a bench cut,” Freeman said. “There’s been lots of bush hogging through here to make it wider, so, for the most part, fortunately, we didn’t have to take a lot of trees.”
Federal Transportation Alternative Program grants helped pay for the $749,500 contract for Phase 3. A TAP grant for the TV Hill leg has also been secured, Wallace told the board.
Construction plans for a wetlands park near the creek mouth with an elevated bridge connecting TV Hill to Tatum Street are being developed, she said, and will be included in next year’s TAP grant proposal.
The city’s pedestrian and bicycle master plan envisions the Greenway Trail at the center of an expansive trail system connecting multiple points of the city. Neighborhood connections, such as a proposed spur connecting Malvern Avenue to the Hollywood portion of the Greenway, are integral to that effort.
“We want to connect neighborhoods to the Greenway,” Wallace told the board. “Once you’re on the Greenway, you’re on the main spine and you can go anywhere in the city.”