Raccoon River Valley
Trail connected

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This article was written and posted on INHF's website in September 2000.

RAGBRAI is over, but it's never too early to start training for next year. With a new addition to the Raccoon River Valley Trail (RRVT), bicyclists, bladers and hikers will finally be able to travel 52 consecutive miles - the full length of the trail.

On August 31, a joint effort by Dallas, Greene and Guthrie counties and the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (INHF) purchased the former Union Pacific railroad between Yale, Herndon and Dawson, eliminating the trail's five-mile gap.

The construction bid for this new segment has been awarded to Henningson Construction and the counties are aiming for completion by October. The trail between Yale and Herndon will have an asphalt surface and the spur from Herndon to Dawson will remain unpaved, suitable for hiking and mountain biking. This spur could eventually lead into Perry.

Dan Towers, director of the Greene County Conservation Board (CCB), said this is the latest phase in the trail and a very important connection. "Now, stretching from Jefferson to Waukee, it will be 52 miles - the longest asphalt trail in the state," he added.

The new segment was purchased and will be developed with state and federal grant money and private donations facilitated through INHF. Bridges along the trail will be named after large private donors. Two of the four bridges available for adoption have been claimed by Brenton Bank and Iowa 150 Bike Ride/A Sesquicentennial Expedition.

"A project of this magnitude is statewide in significance," said Joe Hanner, director of the Guthrie CCB. "It took three countywide government entities and the largest Iowa-based private conservation group to make this happen - I think the public should be pleased with the results."

The City of Clive Parks and Recreation opened a separate, additional two-mile segment last fall. This segment connects the RRVT trailhead in Waukee to the Clive Greenbelt Trail - a greenway boasting seven hard-surface trail miles of its own.

A 1992 study of the trail estimated that 58 percent of visitors to the RRVT are from the Des Moines area. Because this is the first summer that trail-goers have had access to the RRVT from the Clive Greenbelt Trail, that number is on the rise.

"By now the number of Des Moines metro area trail users is probably even higher than when we did the survey," said Bob Myers of the Dallas CCB. "[The Clive Greenbelt-RRVT connection] definitely makes it easier for folks to get on their bikes and ride out to us - rather than having to drive their cars out and find a parking spot."

The metro-area access to the RRVT has the communities along the trail excited about the possibilities for economic and tourism growth. Towers said that a Greene County group has been brainstorming ways to maximize the economic development this trail could bring.

"We anticipate there'll be a lot of West Des Moines-oriented people showing up in Jefferson, and we're wondering what kind of attractions would hold those people here a little longer."

One idea has already taken flight. A restored depot is scheduled to open around October at the trailhead in Jefferson. The depot, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, will house the Greene CCB office, a railroad museum, and a collection from the Lincoln Highway Association. The community is also contemplating turning an old grain elevator adjacent to the depot into an attraction.

"Somebody mentioned a place in Illinois where they had turned an elevator into a rock climbing or rappelling-type thing," said Towers. "But that's just in the infant stages right now - we have the potential to make it a trail with big possibilities for impact on a regional basis."

The entire RRVT and its new sections are products of "railbanking." The Service Transportation Board uses railbanking to ensure that discontinued railways are not destroyed - in case there would be a future need for them. However, in the meantime, they may be used for other modes of transportation - such as walking and biking.

"Railbanking is important because it preserves intact, linear corridors that can be used for alternative transportation, natural resource protection, greenways, and future rail use," said Lisa Hein, INHF's program and planning director.

For more information about Foundation news, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.