Two Rivers Park Updates

On my quick trip to Little Rock this weekend, I visited Two Rivers Park which, with the recent completion of the new bridge, has become very, very, popular.  If you don't know, Two Rivers Park is a large city/county park in West Little Rock bounded by the Arkansas River and the Little Maumelle.  In addition to being a great place to paddle, hike, bike, bird, and ride horses, the park also has a massive community garden where you can rent plots.

The park has miles of paved and unpaved trails that travel through a variety of habitats.  The Garden of Trees in the southern half of the park will one day be a formally landscaped setting where "rooms" of different tree species turn different colors in the fall.  I helped plant a lot of the trees out there many years ago, and know first-hand that the huge deer population in the park is severely stunting the growth of the trees in this garden.

The two updates I have to share on the park are:
1)  Be mindful of locking your car and what you leave in your vehicles when parking at the Two Rivers Bridge or the Big Dam Bridge.  Break-ins are more common at those parking areas than they should be.
2)  There is a new bike lane/bike trail from Two Rivers to Maumelle Park.  I believe the idea is for this to one day continue all the way to Pinnacle Mountain State Park.  The bike lane runs along County Farm Rd. from the park entrance to Pinnacle Valley Rd.  From there, there are 5-6' wide asphalt paths along both sides of Pinnacle Valley Rd. all the way to Maumelle Park.  As I wrote earlier, these are much safer than bike lanes.

Detailed maps and descriptions of Two Rivers Park, Pinnacle Mountain State Park, the Little Maumelle River, and lots of other great places in Central Arkansas can be found in Trails of Central Arkansas.

Building Bridges - Connecting Communities, Trails, and Parks

This year has been a big one for bridge building in Little Rock. The Big Dam bridge got a baby brother this summer when the Little Maumelle bridge was completed.  This attractive and already heavily used bridge connects an extension of the River Trail to Two Rivers Park.  For most Little Rockians, this makes Two Rivers Park much more accessible, as people living in Riverdale, The Heights, and Hillcrest can now bike to Two Rivers in less time than it would take them to drive.

Down the river on the other side of town, the Junction Bridge is expecting a sibling as well.  The Rock Island bridge is getting a face-lift and will soon play host to bikers and pedestrians travelling between Little Rock and North Little Rock or making the River Trail loop.  Unlike the Junction Bridge, this bridge has a continuous ramp, so bikers will no longer have to dismount and take lots of stairs or an elevator to get across the river.

These bridges and the trails they connect, will have (and are already having) a major positive impact on the quality of life and health of the citizens of Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Where should the next bridge be built?  Somewhere over Fourche Creek?  Between the Big Dam Bridge and the Junction Bridge?  Or would that money be better spent helping pave some of the many proposed trails out there?