Lawrence resident MacKenzie Koester approaches 11th Street while running along the Burrough's Trail, Thursday, March 2, 2017. A local work group has started a campaign to fill the gaps in the Lawrence Loop in places where the multiuse path is interrupted. Eleventh and Oregon streets is one of those locations.

Nearly 20 years since the first concrete was poured, a local coalition wants to make sure more don’t go by before the 23-mile concrete trail around the city is completed.

Though the goal of a continuous trail for the bikers, runners or commuters has remained on the horizon, a work group has launched an effort to get the Lawrence Loop completed.

“This is a really unique resource,” said Jeff Severin, chair of Healthy Built Environment, a work group of the LiveWell Lawrence coalition. “There aren’t a lot of communities that have this type of trail system, and we’re so close to having it completed that we felt like it was something we could really get behind and really try to identify ways to get it completed.”

More than 75 percent of the trail is complete, and getting the last 5 miles of loop done and adding connector trails — much of it through the most densely populated portions of the city — will likely require both city and outside funding, as well as right-of-way easements.

Part of the work group’s platform this year is to “encourage and support” the city to construct at least one of the remaining segments of the loop. The incomplete segments in the path are concentrated on the northern part of the loop, with the three major gaps located near downtown, Lawrence Memorial Hospital and in northwest Lawrence.

Community priorities

In a community survey conducted last year by the Parks and Recreation Department, 80 percent of respondents said city trails and pathways were the most important amenity provided by the department. When asked to identify the most important improvements to existing facilities, completing the loop and adding connector trails was the top response, picked by 64 percent of the respondents.

Mayor Leslie Soden said that although it seems to her that the commission is generally supportive of the effort to complete the loop, it has to be put in context with the city’s other budget priorities.

“So, while it’s nice to want to say that completing the Lawrence Loop is our first priority, we have many things that are also a huge priority,” Soden said.

Completing the loop is part of the city’s five-year capital improvement plan and the Parks and Recreation Department’s master plan, but actually making that happen in coming years will depend on whether the City Commission decides to allocate funding toward it. The only portion allocated in the CIP for 2017 is a small segment connecting 29th Street to the Haskell Indian Nations University trail, which is estimated to cost $75,000.

Completing the downtown segment

One of the segments often mentioned is the downtown leg of the loop, which would be approximately 1 mile long and would connect the trail that leaves off near Hobbs Park in East Lawrence to the Burcham Park Trail. Severin said that the downtown leg, in particular, is a segment that they see as having wide community benefit.

“I think there’s a strong interest within our group to complete those downtown sections because there are so many opportunities there to tie into the community,” Severin said.

The exact route of the downtown segment has yet to be determined, and Parks and Recreation officials say that constructing that segment is more difficult because the area is densely populated, and would include right-of-way from private properties.

“It’s a little easier when you’re out away from town and you’re dealing with two or three property owners,” said Mark Hecker, assistant director of Parks and Recreation. “Where if you get in the downtown area and you don’t have the right-of-way then you have to acquire the right-of-way from multiple property owners, so it’s definitely more difficult in the downtown area.”

The loop isn’t only paved paths, as multiple segments of the loop have used pedestrian bridges to go over creeks. Soden said that she is interested in whether a pedestrian bridge or two across the Kansas River could be part of the completion of the downtown leg. She said the bridges have the potential to be funded in part by state or federal transportation grants, and that they could help create a simpler route.

“I think that that might be a good way to avoid Sixth Street, the railroad and of course just the area is very narrow there with the river,” Soden said. “And I think just having pedestrian bridges would be a really good idea in terms of general pedestrian traffic over the river as well.”

Finding outside funding

In addition to the downtown segment, there are two other significant gaps in the loop. One is the hospital segment, which would connect the Sandra J. Shaw trail near Lawrence Memorial Hospital to Peterson Road. The other is a segment in northwestern Lawrence that would connect Queens Road to Kasold Drive.

In the Parks and Recreation Department’s master plan, additional segments of the loop are estimated to cost $300,000 each. However, Hecker said he did not have an estimate for how much it would cost to complete the rest of the loop, as the exact routes the trails will take through and around the city are not finalized, and cost depends on the terrain and right-of-way easements.

But not all the funding for the loop need come from the city itself. Various state and federal grants have been used to complete sections of the trail thus far, and both Hecker and Soden said finding grant money is a key part of the solution.

Severin, too, said that part of the group’s effort will be seeking sources of outside funding.

“We just want to work to continue to find opportunities to fund those segments, whether it’s funding through the city or through other sources that can contribute to the completion of it,” he said.

Hecker said finding funding is opportunity-based, and depends on state or federal financing. He said the city has used transportation grants for the urban portions of the trail as well as Sunflower Foundation grants for more rural areas.

“We’ll put a project in our capital improvement plan, one each year,” Hecker said. “But it’s not enough to do the whole project, so we’ll have to have grant funding. Basically what we try to do is put in a match to a grant.”

Making connections

The loop is also lacking some connector trails, to link up the trail to neighborhoods throughout the city. The department’s master plan identified five “underserved” zones in the city when it comes to trail connections. Those zones are concentrated in the core of the city, with four located east of Kasold Drive.

Severin said connector trails are equally important to the group, as they increase the function of the loop, helping it to better serve as a means of transportation for commuters.

“I think it’s just as important to make sure that we’re making connections into the community so that the loop is easier to access, and providing not just the loop but the spokes into the community,” Severin said.

What’s next

Some of the recently completed portions of the loop include the Baldwin Creek trail in northwestern Lawrence and a leg that runs along the newest portion of the South Lawrence Trafficway and the wetlands, connecting South Iowa Street to Haskell Avenue.

One of the work group’s goals is to increase engagement and community support for completing the loop, which will include raising awareness about what the loop is by hosting and promoting events related to the loop, as well as keeping the community updated on progress, Severin said. As they continue to market and raise funds for completion of the project, Severin said getting input from the community will also be key.

“And then of course as part of that, building that community of support so that when those types of (funding) opportunities do come up, that we can really demonstrate that this is something that our community is really interested in getting completed and being connected to,” Severin said.

The City Commission will begin discussing the budget for 2018 in May.