Travails along a trail

Posted Nov 4, 2004
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Some bicyclists avoid the Neal Smith Trail near Saylorville Lake because of its cracks and bumps.

By BOB MODERSOHN REGISTER STAFF WRITER November 4, 2004 Dallas County spends big bucks Regardless of where trails are located, they cost big bucks to maintain. Last summer, Dallas County resurfaced its stretch of the 56-mile Raccoon River Valley Trail at a bid of $36,935 per mile. That's $443,226 for a 3-inch overlay on 12 miles of trail. Funds to do this phase of the work came from Dallas County, the Central Iowa Regional Transportation Planning Alliance and the Federal Recreational Trail Fund. "We actually thought the asphalt bid was a very good one," said Mike Wallace, director of the Dallas County Conservation Board. The county bid its trail project the same day as its secondary roads projects. Contractors bid for a larger quantity project by combining the two. "This saved both departments several thousand dollars," Wallace said. A trail fee system brings in an average $7,000 to $10,000 per year that goes toward trail development and repair. A daily permit costs $2 per trail user, and an annual permit costs $10 per year. Permits may be purchased through the mail, at the administrative office at Forest Park, or on the trail. Dallas County is developing a trails association to help with trails projects, Wallace said.

Showing age: The Neal Smith Trail near Saylorville Lake suffers from cracks, such as the one the bicyclist is crossing. Riders using the 23.7-mile path encounter bumps from years of use. All about The Neal Smith Trail

Steve Fairbanks knows all about bone-jarring cracks and heaves in the Neal Smith Trail. He's the operations manager responsible for upkeep of the Saylorville recreation area. Four-inch gaps have opened up across some widths of the trail north of the Saylorville Lake Visitor Center. Four to six accidents have been reported per year since 1999 along some trail stretches, in addition to perhaps dozens of spills that aren't reported. Fairbanks' staff treated a bruised and bloodied rider in their office last month. More than 100,000 people a year now use a trail originally built for $400,000 to carry cyclists at a maximum of 20 mph. The pavement's cracked surface and speeding cyclists are mostly to blame for its deteriorating condition. Improving the trail today would cost as much as it would to rip it out and start over. Trail projects compete for federal grants, which limits funding opportunities. So far, the trail has not had an aggressive lobbyist to push for the improvements. It would take $14.2 million to bring only 13 miles of the 23.7-mile trail up to current standards - including repairs, widening, reconstruction and bridges, said Fairbanks at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Saylorville Lake Project a few weeks ago. That's if reconstruction began soon, before inflation increased costs. "It's the unglamorous part of trails," he said. You can't just lay an inch of asphalt over an existing trail as you would over a highway. Fairbanks said the trail is an outdated design. Only 8 feet wide - the safety standard for such trails is now 10 feet - the bike path was created in the early 1970s and '80s without formal road engineering. Hooking up new trails to the 30-year-old Neal Smith Trail is "like running a four-lane boulevard into a gravel road," Fairbanks said. To repair it, the old trail needs first to be ground up, followed by putting down 3 inches of asphalt and adding shoulders. That costs $25,000 per 1,000 feet, Fairbanks said. That much was spent just to reconstruct a short stretch north of the visitor center in 2002, eating up the Corps' entire $25,000 annual maintenance budget for that year. Taking shortcuts is ineffective. Cyclists learned in 2002 that "cold patches" over cracks don't work. After volunteer workers laid patches over cracks in the Neal Smith Trail, cyclists were soon asking why "speed bumps" had been installed. "It's not a good job when the fix is worse than the original condition," said Walter Githens of Urbandale, who rode the trail several times last spring but avoids it now. Like Githens, more and more riders are becoming disgruntled. One out-of-state visitor wrote to Fairbanks last summer that he loved everything about Iowa, but his wife wouldn't be returning anytime soon. Her wrists were sore from the pounding they took while bicycling along parts of the trail. Ross Schuchart, who lives about a mile from the Saylorville Lake Visitor Center, steers away from the trail even though he's a regular bicycle commuter to Principal Financial Group in downtown Des Moines. "I try to avoid riding the trail north of the visitor center for the 'crack/heave' reason," Schuchart said. Using annual maintenance budgets for trail reconstruction won't solve the problem, Fairbanks said. "It is not going to be solved with the operating budget," he said. The budget has been "flat-lined" for years. "The amount appropriated by Congress for the operation and maintenance of Saylorville Lake either doesn't increase or increases by 2 to 3 percent," Fairbanks said. "When you incorporate inflation, increasing cost of contracts and supplies, and pay increases authorized by Congress, you either stay the same or lose ground. It's a federal recreation area; it's going to take federal appropriation to fix it." Lisa Hein, programming and planning coordinator for the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, said maintenance is very important now that the trail system is reaching 20-plus years. However, she added, "there aren't a lot of maintenance dollars out there, especially for the major resurfacing projects." Former U.S. Rep. Neal Smith, the trail's namesake who spearheaded its development all those years ago, says the Corps' portion of the trail should be redone and it may cost less than projected. He has talked to Democrats Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Leonard Boswell about the reconstruction project. "The offices need to work on it," Smith said. The Des Moines River Recreational River and Greenbelt Advisory Committee needs to take the lead, Smith said. Mike Wallace of the Dallas County Conservation Board and a member of the greenbelt advisory committee said he addresses the same problem in Dallas County with the Raccoon River Trail. "The funding opportunities are limited. We depend on federal grants, and there are more trail projects than money available," he said. The committee advises the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about improvements and projects along a federally designated greenbelt, which includes the Saylorville and Red Rock dams and watersheds. "They need to make it a priority," Smith said. "It's the centerpiece." An improved Neal Smith Trail "encourages other spurs to be completed," he said. If trail conditions worsen, the trail could be closed and posted with warnings, Fairbanks said. Enforcement would be difficult. Areas between Prairie Flower campground and the marina were closed in 2001 (and again this summer) because of high water, wave action and accumulating debris. Fairbanks watched cyclists ride around barricades and through foot-deep water over the trail. "Not the safest conditions to bike in, but we don't have the staff to prevent it," Fairbanks said.