For more information about the mountain bike park go here.
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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. In a community that boasts millions of acres in wilderness areas, parklands and green space, it's a bit ironic that we sometimes lack organized and maintained areas to recreate. But if all goes well, a partnership between the city of Eugene, the Eugene Parks Foundation and private business may soon bring Lane County residents a brand-new mountain bike park with miles of trails, a centralized hub system and easy access points. The park could become the envy of the state. Today on the show, you'll hear from the city and the foundation to learn about how it came about, where it will be located and how they're blending city, state and private money to make it a reality. Dusty McCourt, board member with the Eugene Parks Foundation, and Philip Richardson, landscape architect and project manager with the city of Eugene Parks Department. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us. Welcome to Oregon On the Record.
Both: Thanks for having us. Great to be here, Michael.
Dunne: Dusty, I'm going to start with you. Let's level set for folks: What does the Eugene Parks Foundation do for the city?
Dusty McCourt: We're kind of the funding arm for creating park spaces for the people of the area, really the entirety of Lane County. It starts with building actual parks, and then there's lots of trail work as well. We work not just on those pieces but also on creating more spaces to connect the dots for the Rivers to Ridges pathway. That's the piece people don't really see and appreciate, but it's happening constantly in the background.
Dunne: Philip, jumping off from that, talk about what it takes, the process of developing and maintaining trails and paths in Eugene.
Philip Richardson: I've been working at the city for 25 years, and it takes a lot. We've come a long way. Anybody who's been out on our trails over the last couple of decades has certainly seen the improvements. We have a crew that goes out every day and handles all the things that need to happen. This project in particular has been a long time coming, and it's taken a lot of work, including planning processes. We're just super excited to be here and getting close.
Dunne: Dusty, let's take off from there. Tell us about this program, the trails and this specific campaign, Finish the Ride.
McCourt: As Philip said, this is a big feature that's been a long time coming. I think of this as a crown jewel park for the Eugene parks system. It's gorgeous, it's massive and it's accessible. People will be able to reach it by car. Some will be able to hike to it. And kids from the north side of town will be able to access it through the bus system. The piece we're building specifically is targeted toward mountain biking. That's what the Finish the Ride campaign is about. It's going to be feature-rich and accessible for everybody, with the means for everyone to get out, interact with nature and breathe the fresh air we have here.
Dunne: Philip, put some context around it. Where is it located, and what is the full scope of the project?
Richardson: Finish the Ride is really one piece of a bigger project: the whole mountain bike park, which is set within Susan Arlie Park. That's actually our biggest single park, about 565 acres. It's south of Lane Community College, off 30th Avenue, right next to Interstate 5, and it's connected into the existing ridgeline system at Mount Baldy. Anybody familiar with the ridgeline has probably been out there. We don't have any developed trails yet, of course. We're in the middle of building them.
Dunne: Tell us about the confines of the park, where it starts, where it ends and what specifically needs to be finished.
Richardson: Arlie is this large park, the single largest we have, connected to the ridgeline at Mount Baldy. It goes almost all the way to Interstate 5, and it is now connected to LCC on the south-southeast corner. We're developing about a third of it with trails. The master plan calls for more, but this is Phase 1, which the community has wanted for a very long time. About eight miles of trail are designed in total. Approximately half of that is mountain bike-specific, and the rest is shared use, including two miles that extend the ridgeline trail. There will be a new parking lot, a new trailhead and lots of really fun things for people to do.
Dunne: Dusty, talk about how you looked at this and determined that this kind of mountain bike access is something Eugene really needs.
McCourt: This is a known phenomenon in this town. It's been something sorely wanted for 20, 30 years. This is the first time we've really been able to come together to create a space designated specifically for mountain biking, built out in a way that will truly fill that need that's been there for many, many years.
Dunne: Is the thought that this could eventually host mountain bike competitions?
McCourt: Those sorts of things are already in the works. Mike Ripley runs a race series throughout Oregon and has already targeted this as a potential spot for some of his big races. The Youth Mountain Biking Association is excited about holding events there and bringing in all the people who will come to see this beautiful space.
Dunne: Philip, talk about what's left to complete and what resources the city needs to finish the project.
Richardson: We've had a contractor on site since last year. It's roughly a two-year build, and more than half of the trails are already built. They're not completed yet, and no one should go out and try to ride them. It's still a construction zone. We expect most of the trails to be finished by June. There's also additional work: we have to meet county requirements, widen the road and build the parking lot and trailhead. All of that is coming. It's likely not open until October or November. It takes a lot of expertise to design and build this properly, and we've had some excellent consultants and a very good contractor on site.
Dunne: I want to pull that string a bit, because I imagine a lot of people think building a trail just means getting a shovel out. Talk about what it actually takes to design and build something like this.
Richardson: A lot of people do think, well, how hard can it be to build a trail? That might be true in some areas, but consider where this sits: right on the edge of the city, with a population of around 200,000. A lot of people are going to use this space, and it really has to meet all the safety and environmental regulations. It takes a lot of work and expertise to make it sustainable. That's very important to us as an organization.
Dunne: Dusty, did you want to add something?
McCourt: The city has done an incredible job selecting the people who have come in to design and build this. The designers and builders on this project are people who have worked on world-class facilities in Bentonville, Whistler and locally at Whiskey Run and the Newport trail systems. Having my son out there as a 7-year-old on a mountain bike, the trails those designers created were the things that really made a difference for him and turned him into a mountain biker.
Richardson: I'll just shout out to Eddie Kessler and Shane Wilson of Trail House, and to Eric Emerson of Creative Trail Design and Zach, who handles the mountain bike-specific work. These are all really talented, thoughtful people doing the work the way it needs to be done. It's not just hacking a trail through the wilderness. It's a lot more detailed than that.
Dunne: Dusty, talk about the money still needed to complete the project.
McCourt: That's the tricky part. It's hard for the community to really understand what's happening here. The city of Eugene has contributed over $4 million, and we have national and state grants helping to fill the gap. They are doing everything they can to create this magnificent space. But inflation and time have created a funding gap just to complete the last four trails. That's what we're targeting: the last four trails, three trail hubs and the fit and finish that will make this the park we all need. To clarify with rough numbers: the total is approximately $4 to $4.5 million. The city has put in about $2 million. We have a $1.2 million grant from the federal government through the Economic Development Administration, which was very competitive. There are only two in Oregon, and we're one of them. We also applied for close to $991,000 from state parks and were among the top five applicants. We're leveraging bond dollars and system development charges, and we're very fortunate to have the Eugene Parks Foundation and people like Dusty helping out, because we weren't able to put everything into the existing contract. That's why there's this fundraising effort.
Dunne: Once it's done, will it be just for mountain bikes, or is there a separation between bikers, hikers and walkers?
Richardson: That's a great question. Our thinking on this has shifted a bit. There does seem to be some division: mountain bikers want mountain bike-specific features, and hikers don't always want to share. We're never going to have enough money to build entirely separate systems for everybody. We've had about 14 miles of hiking trail for a long time and have very slowly added small bits of mountain biking trail. So this whole thing has been designed in a way that, hopefully, brings these two groups together and builds understanding between them. All the people I interact with, the disciples of dirt, the bikers I see out on the ridgeline almost every week, they're really good, kind and considerate people. There are always a few who aren't, but that's true for hikers and runners as well. The park is designed around a hub system, so you have the ability to come together and observe what's going on without necessarily having to participate. There is also an additional ridgeline trail connection: it's about four feet wide, graveled, roughly two miles, and it's closely connected to these hubs. We'll be signing it clearly. The idea is that it's designed so people can understand what's happening and appreciate what's going on.
Dunne: Can you define the hub system? I may be unfamiliar with that term.
Richardson: Conceptually, think a little bit about ski areas. You take a lift to the top, and there's a hub with a bunch of trails going off from it. It's similar here, except there are no lifts. You're going to have to get up there under your own power. There will be hubs, maybe 30 to 40 feet in diameter, with multiple trails radiating out from them at different difficulty levels: green, blue, black, again similar to ski areas. Dusty may have more to add about that.
Dunne: Dusty, anything to add on the hub system?
McCourt: They're designed to decrease conflict but also pique people's curiosity. People walking by on the ridgeline trail are going to be captivated by these spaces. They have amazing views and little information kiosks that explain what's going on. And inevitably, there will be families and kids getting ready to ride the trails, and conversations will happen. Empathy will be created, building more understanding between user groups and decreasing conflicts.
Dunne: Dusty, paint a picture for us. When it's completed and open to the public, what will a first-time visitor experience?
McCourt: You're going to be wowed. You'll tuck into this spot behind LCC, pull up to a lovely parking lot with a bunch of trails coming out of it, and you can park right there and get on your bike and start riding, or start hiking from that spot. Then you go up into the hills where the views just open up, the oak savanna is all around you, the wildlife is there and you'll see the spectacular view immediately adjacent to Eugene.
Dunne: Philip, could this be a model for other cities: this concept, and specifically this idea of a city and a foundation coming together to make something like this happen?
Richardson: I think so. I've heard Eddie and Shane both say we have something really unique here, being close to the city, being a large natural area with this kind of mixture of mountain bikers, hikers and trail runners. I can't say whether other cities will follow our lead, but it really is unique. And it's been a long time coming. There was a lot of planning involved. We have a lot of land, much of it under conservation easements. This is a spot that doesn't have those constraints, and we're able to build something the community has been waiting for decades.
McCourt: It's really important to note that we've raised about $100,000 so far, and we have to say thank you. Tacovore was our first big donor, and are there many people in Eugene who don't love Tacovore? Then there's SnoTemp, another great local business. You would expect Tacovore to benefit directly from the tourism this park could bring. SnoTemp is another one many people don't know much about, but it's a family heritage business here in Eugene, and they're investing in what this park is going to become. We're all going to benefit greatly from this. And one more thing: every dollar we raise between now and the end of March will go directly into what's being built. That will be the park you get to see by the end of this year. That's truly remarkable. It just never happens that way.
Dunne: Well, for outdoor recreationists around Lane County, this is very exciting news. Dusty McCourt, board member with the Eugene Parks Foundation, and Philip Richardson, landscape architect and project manager with the city of Eugene Parks Department. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us.
Both: Thank you, Michael. A pleasure to be here.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On the Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear from a reporter with The Bend Bulletin about controversies over that city's diversity program, which has now seen two directors either leave voluntarily or be fired by the council. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On the Record. Thanks for listening.
