Commuting to the U will be safer and healthier in the future.
Students and faculty living in the Sugar House area will one day be able to bike to campus without riding along a busy street.
A new bridge placed over I-215 near Parley’s Canyon this summer was the beginning of a massive project to create Utah’s first east-west trail corridor.
The project began with a group of community members and government representatives who saw a “need for a better connecting trail from east to west,” said Josh Ewing, a member of the Parley’s Rails, Trails and Tunnels Coalition Board of Directors.
PRATT is a non-profit volunteer organization that is working to plan and create the new eight-mile trail.
The goal of the Parley’s Creek Corridor Trail is to connect the Bonneville Shoreline Trail with the Jordan River Parkway.
The trail will create an easier route for non-motorized transportation. It will connect communities separated by freeways and allow non-motorized access to schools, business districts, parks, churches and other community facilities.
“It will ultimately create a safer east-west commute for bicyclers and a place for people to be active and out in the community,” Ewing said.
The 10-foot wide paved trail will be accessible to any non-motorized recreation, including bicyclers, walkers, joggers, skateboarders, longboarders and roller-bladers.
Trees, grass and shrubbery will line the paved trails. Scenic viewing locations and park benches will be scattered along the way.
The bridge, set to open in September, will allow pedestrians to cross I-215 — an important step in the project because it will connect the Bonneville Shoreline Trail with the proposed Parley’s Creek Corridor Trail.
After crossing the bridge into Parley’s Historic Nature Park, a paved trail will follow I-80 through Tanner Park and to 1700 East. There, the trail would go south and west of Sugar House Park to 1300 East. At that point, there are plans for a passage under 1300 East to better reach the Sugar House business district.
The trail would then come to the UTA right-of-way by Fairmont Park and continue with a “rails-with-trails” development under I-15 and to the Jordan Parkway.
The trail is still going through environmental studies and extensive planning stages, but hopes are that other phases will begin construction in the next couple of years.
Check out www.parleystrails.org for more information or to volunteer for fundraising, event planning, education and, eventually, trail work.