River trails work behind about 10 days

[waterboy]

Just ran the new path this past week. I love the stone walls and its quite smooth and pretty but...its just like running on a paved street. Hard. Two things come to mind. Its very wide and appears to be designed for bikers. They will rule and be quite fast. And the lack of a choice of a crushed rock surface along with a paved surface ignores the runners who long have preferred the soft crushed rock. Don't tell me maintenance was a concern because the last crushed rock path lasted some 25+ years and was doing well. The informal cross country paths that ran closer to the river are now gone (paved over I think). The stretch from the pedestrian bridge is not that scenic anymore and noisy because of Riverside. Reminds me of the stretch along the Creek Expwy. I'm going to the west side.

Good news for the future though. Its wide enough and well enough constructed it could serve as an expansion of Riverside Dr.!

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Just ran the new path this past week. I love the stone walls and its quite smooth and pretty but...its just like running on a paved street. Hard. Two things come to mind. Its very wide and appears to be designed for bikers. They will rule and be quite fast. And the lack of a choice of a crushed rock surface along with a paved surface ignores the runners who long have preferred the soft crushed rock. Don't tell me maintenance was a concern because the last crushed rock path lasted some 25+ years and was doing well. The informal cross country paths that ran closer to the river are now gone (paved over I think). The stretch from the pedestrian bridge is not that scenic anymore and noisy because of Riverside. Reminds me of the stretch along the Creek Expwy. I'm going to the west side.

Good news for the future though. Its wide enough and well enough constructed it could serve as an expansion of Riverside Dr.!

I like to run on flat paved surfaces I don't like crushed rock or running on grass it twists my ankle many ways and crushed rock gets muddy in rain. I use good running shoes and like paved surfaces. It's too bad so much of the new trail is so close to the street and car traffic and car exaust fumes. The old trail was in bad shape it was crumbling and narrow and falling apart. I'm surprised private money is being used, most places build jogging trails with city or state funds. The federal gov't now gives out money to states/cities to build jogging/Bike trails. Indianapolis is building a nice network of jogging/Bike trails you can see them by googling "Indy greenways" or check out this link...http://www.indygreenways.org/monon/monon.htm Another link http://www.indygreenways.org/whiteriver/whiteriver.htm

[sgrizzle]

I went by today and the area that looks close to the street is still 8-10 feet away from the far edge. So if you're accident prone and 9ft tall, don't run down the edge.

I guess they will mark the paths at some point as to which is which because I saw walkers and runners on both paths.

[TheArtist]

I am interested to see what kind of lighting and landscaping they put in. That could make it look really nice. All in all a great project so far. Would like to see some of the underbrush and such cleared out in a lot of areas on the East side further down. Leave the nature preserve parts alone, but get rid of a few scraggly little trees, broken branches, vines, etc. so you can see down to the river a bit better. The trees that remain will grow healthier and broader if they are thinned out a bit and plant some native wildflowers and grasses underneath. Heck I would get out there and clean out some of the underbrush myself if It were ok to do so?