Trail Closing in Downtown Cedar Rapids Will Eventually be Good News for Users

Dave Franzman
Sun August 04 2013
Posted Aug 4, 2013
6,012

Bikers, joggers and walkers using a popular trail along the Cedar River in downtown Cedar Rapids will have to take a trail detour beginning Monday. But the result at the end will be an elimination of a current zigzag trail route through a city parking lot.

The Cedar River Trail from 8th to 12th avenues SE will see construction starting next week. Signs have gone up noting a several-block-long section of the trail will close beginning on the 29th. The $750,000 project will redirect the trail underneath the Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Railway (CRANDIC) tracks south of 8th Avenue SE.

Rob Davis, assistant city engineer, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is paying $479,000 or 64% of the work as an alternative flood project chosen by the city. The CRANDIC is contributing $82,400 toward the project as well. The city's share is 25% or $188,000.

Davis said the trail crossed the railroad tracks at grade level before the flood of June 2008 destroyed the railroad bridge. When the bridge was rebuilt, the railroad installed a fence as a safety measure on both sides of the track forcing trail users to go through a city parking lot to get from one side of the trail to the other. The concrete trail path abruptly ends at either side of the railroad fence.

Davis said plans call for a retaining wall structure with 10-foot-wide bike path to go under the CRANDIC bridge. The work is expected to close that portion of the Cedar River Trail for about three months.

Davis said reconnecting the trail has been a priority because users currently have to contend with both automobile and bus traffic in the parking lot to go from one side to the other. The city’s transit buses currently operate from a parking lot near the trail construction and use the same marked route as the bikers and joggers.

A number of trail users over the noon hour Friday called the closing “good news” because it would eventually eliminate the parking lot detour that spoiled the atmosphere.

Michelle Schaffer, a jogger, said "it makes it a little more of a challenge, you don't get to stick with the nature park of the trail and the greenery when you're dealing with exhaust and the cars and watching out for cars and buses."

Another user, Don Luskey who was riding a bike, was glad to hear the trail will now go under rather than over the CRANDIC tracks.

"Oh, I like to go under things myself," Luskey said.

City engineers said a trail overpass would be way more expensive than going under the tracks.