The need to carry off stormwater has poured cold water on future plans for turning the Rock Island biker-hiker trail into a beautifully landscaped greenway park.

The trail starts at Monument Creek and runs east along the right of way of the old Rock Island Railroad, which many years ago operated a daily passenger train between Colorado Springs and Chicago.

Today, the railroad tracks only go a short distance, and freight service is provided by the Union Pacific Railroad. Beyond that point, the tracks have been abandoned and taken up and scrapped.

The Rock Island Trail runs west to east parallel to Fontanero Street a few blocks to the south. Fillmore Street runs west to east a few blocks to the north. Some of the adjoining neighborhoods are the Old North End, Roswell, Bonnyville and Kitty Hawk.

The original hope of the neighborhoods located along the Rock Island Trail was to turn the trail area into a heavily landscaped strip park with benches and tables for sitting and eating out. A children’s playground or two was also part of the concept.

The neighborhoods supporting the park are organized as the Rock Island Greenway Advocates, with Tom Murawski, of the Old North End neighborhood, serving as their leader.

But a big problem area was a roughly quarter-mile stretch of the Rock Island Trail from its crossing with Templeton Gap Road to its crossing with Paseo Road.

The stretch was narrow and included a cement-lined drainage way that filled with rushing stormwater during summer thunder showers.

The necessity of preserving the cement drainage way to prevent the flooding of adjacent neighborhoods canceled the plans for a trailside strip park.

A feasibility study, presented at a meeting of the Stormwater Advisory Committee, gave the following arguments against removing the unattractive concrete-lined channel:

• The area between Paseo Road and Templeton Gap Road is too narrow to limit the water height during a routine two-year flood. As a result, the Stormwater Advisory Committee cannot support a more natural water channel.
• Marred by weeds and graffiti, the concrete channel is unsightly. But it moves water fast and can withstand a 100-year flood. 
• The distance between Templeton Gap Road and Paseo Road is too short. Water would spread out from the pipe under Paseo Road and collect just 1,100 feet later to pass under Templeton Gap Road. The quick expansion and contraction of the stormwater will cause too much trouble.
• Piping the water between the two roads is not practical. Pipes cost more to inspect and repair than open channels. Besides, a park planted on top of such a pipe would pose problems from interference from growing tree roots. 
• Easy access to a more open water channel will endanger children in a sudden flood. 

So, the concrete channel stays as is, and the proposed greenway park is impractical. The Colorado Springs Parks Department cannot seek funding for naturalizing the Rock Island greenway without the Stormwater committee’s technical and financial backing.

As a result of the above decision, the Templeton Gap-Paseo section of the trail has been left neglected. The asphalt paving on the trail is narrow and falling apart and breaking away.

The trees have been allowed to grow tall and thick and are blocking the public view of adults and children using the trail, a safety concern. The trees are weedy and unkempt in appearance. And there is a great deal of junk and trash and other debris lying on the ground.

The neighbors, therefore, have been lobbying for a general fixing-up of the section. They want the asphalt trail repaved with concrete and widened to 12 feet. They want many of the trees chopped down and thinned out.

The Parks Department has been supportive. A plan for improving the area will be implemented in 2027 as part of the department’s priority list.

Two years ago, Parks improved the lengthy section of the trail that runs from Monument Creek east to Templeton Gap Road. This section runs underneath the bridges that carry North Cascade Avenue and North Nevada Avenue over the trail and the water channel.

There are also concerns at the point where the Rock Island Trail crosses Templeton Gap Road. Southbound traffic on Templeton Gap rises up to go over what used to be the railroad crossing, then quickly dips back down to road level. This causes the vehicles to bounce over the high spot and makes it difficult for a moment for the drivers to see into the low spot where the trail crosses the street.

The city is proposing to install a pedestrian island, a raised median or protected area placed in the center of a road, allowing pedestrians to cross multilane or busy streets in two stages. By breaking the crossing into two, pedestrians only need to monitor one direction of traffic at a time, enhancing safety and reducing crash risks by up to 32%, data shows.

The trail crossing also will be protected with rapid rectangular flashing beacons. These are pedestrian-activated, yellow LED lights installed on warning signs at uncontrolled crosswalks to increase driver yielding rates. They use a high-frequency strobe pattern, boosting visibility and reducing pedestrian crashes by up to 47%. They are highly effective on roads with speeds under 40 mph. 

Farther east, the section of the Rock Island Trail right of way east of the Paseo crossing is wide, and will in the future offer opportunities for making it more of a park-like setting.

This section of the Rock Island Trail is paralleled by Constitution Avenue.

News columnist Bob Loevy is a retired professor of political science at Colorado College and writes about Colorado and national politics.