Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Commission Seeks Trail Comments
FARMINGTON — The city of Farmington is in a good place as northwest Arkansas develops a regional bicycle and pedestrian master plan, according to Steve Bzomowski, a planner with Alta/Greenways, based out of Portland, Ore.
That’s because Farmington already has a city Master Trail Plan.
“It’s great for a smaller community like this to have those plans in place,” Bzomowski said. “Most smaller communities have not done much.”
Adopting a trails plan is the first step in trying to get funding to build trails, Bzomowski said.
Alta/ Greenways is consulting for the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission to develop a regional biking and walking master plan. In the first phase, planners are going out into different communities in the region to seek public input on where people would like to walk and/or bike, where they would like to see trails and what destinations should be linked.
Bzomowski set up a table at the Farmington- Ozark football game to tell people about the project and ask them to go online to give their ideas on a regional trails map.
“We want to get as much local insight as possible,” Bzomowski said. “We want people to have an awareness of what we are doing.”
In addition to the Farmington event, Alta/Greenways will set up tables or attend community meetings at 20 other cities in northwest Arkansas. The firm is scheduled to have a draft plan next spring with the final plan ready next summer or next fall.
A regional master plan would help this area expand beyond the Razorback Greenway, a 36- mile biking and walking trail that connects six towns along the Interstate 540 corridor. The Razorback Greenway is scheduled to be completed next year.
“This is the next step,” Bzomowski said. “We want to make this whole region accessible to walking and biking.”
Communities are realizing the benefits to a trails system. These benefits include health, fitness, recreation and transportation. The idea, Bzomowski said, is to incorporate walking or biking into daily life.
“We’ve done a good job building roads but we’ve forgotten about the human element,” Bzomowski said, adding that the Razorback Greenway has been so successful because people are realizing the importance of trails.
Bzomowski recently looked at Farmington’s Master Trail Plan. He said he sees great potential for connecting the schools, businesses, residential areas and parks in the community.
He specifically pointed to connecting Farmington to the Fayetteville trails and connecting Farmington to hiking and biking trails on Mt. Kessler.
The Farmington City Council adopted the city’s Master Trail Plan in May. The plan is in the form of a map that shows two proposed trails, one 7.33 miles and the other 2.42 miles. The proposed system uses existing sidewalks, follows along the creek-bed of Farmington Branch and goes across undeveloped land. The plan is a guide on where to possibly develop trails in the future.
For more information about the regional project, go to nwabikepedplan.com. A link to the online survey can be found on the home page of this website.