RRVT News
Public’s interest in the Raccoon River Valley Trail is “greater than ever” according to RRVT Association board members who staffed the organization’s display booth at the big Adel Sweet Corn Festival. Everyone is excited about the new “North Loop” being completed, and everybody wants to know when the new High Trestle Trail can be connected to the RRVT.
ADEL, Iowa, August 18, 2011 — Interest in the Raccoon River Valley Trail seemed greater than ever from the big crowd that attends the annual Sweet Corn Festival in Adel. The RRVT Association had its new display booth set up on the town square and stayed busy visiting with people all morning and afternoon.
“The number one question we heard was ‘When will the new loop be completed?’ ” said Cindy Jensen, of Panora and West Des Moines, a member of the board of directors of the RRVT Association who helped staff the booth. “People are extremely excited about the new trail.”
The answer to that question is that the new “North Loop” between the existing trail towns of Waukee and Herndon is scheduled to be completed next summer, 2012. The Perry-Dawson portion of it is already completed, and other portions of it are under construction now.
Jensen said the second and third most frequent questions were “How will the RRVT bew connected to the High Trestle Trail?” and “When will that be completed?” The new 25-mile-long High Trestle Trail stretches from Ankeny to Woodward, and has its fantastic 13-story-high “Art Bridge” between the towns of Woodward and Madrid. It opened this past spring. There has been tremendous public interest in connecting that new trail with the RRVT, which will soon be 89 miles long. While no actual plans are in place, officials of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the City of Perry, the Dallas County Conservation Board and the RRVT Association have all had conversations about how and when the trail connection could be made.
The only complaints about the RRVT that board members heard from the Sweet Corn Festival crowd were about how difficult it can be when the hard-surfaced RRVT crosses gravel roads. “Everybody wants the crossings paved,” said Jensen. When new stretches of concrete trail are now being completed, in central Iowa and elsewhere, they generally are paved right across gravel roads, since the concrete is strong enough to withstand the traffic from autos and heavy equipment on the roads. There are no current plans to pave the crossings of the gravel roads on the original RRVT — from Waukee to Jefferson — but officials are well-aware of the preference of the trail users.
Nearly perfect weather that was very mild for mid-August, brought out a huge crowd for the festival in Adel. You can see some of the fun around the RRVT Association display booth in the photos below here.
