Magic river path reconstruction!

Ok, I've been on a cyclocross posting kick and other stuff has gone a bit by the wayside.  Since last Thursday a small miracle has occurred...the river path has been ripped out and replaced all in less than 4 days (ok....a portion of the path).  And of course because I'm the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAC) chairman, have tons of friends at RTC, and generally on the lookout for all things bikey.....I haven't heard a thing about this or who is responsible!  Anway, here's what it looked like.

I rode this to work last Thursday morning....and here's what I found on my return commute:

No posted detour this morning...but there is one this evening.  At least they put up a detour.

Out with the old!

The removal in action.

This morning, I didn't take the path because I just knew it would torn up for weeks.  Since I didn't see the detour signs out on the road, I rode over from the street route to the path just for a peak.  Imagine my surprise when I found this in front of my wheel!

Not even a bad seam!

Smooth asphalt from the auto museum to the park!

 So kudos to whoever is responsible (seriously who is doing this!!).  At this rate we could have the whole thing repaved before spring!

River path upgrade!

Ok, so I skipped the first day of bike to work week....cause I played hooky from work yesterday.  More on why later.

The big news today is the river path closure is already over!!  I mean most of them last for months so I am really shocked.  This one was apparently done in a single weekend and here are the results!

This section was notorious for knocking a few fillings loose due to all the bumps from the tree roots.  Now it's pretty darn smooth.  I hope they put down a good base beneath the new asphalt so it stays in good condition for years to come!  So kudos to the City of Reno and the Tahoe Pyramid Bikeway group for getting this new section in so quickly!
 

River Path Construction.....with real detours and signs!!

Well, it must be the good weather and the increased use (I mean next week is bike to work week)....so the river path is under construction again.  Besides the inane timing, they are working on a section I would describe as the bounciest, most root infested, narrowest portion of the trail (behind the automobile museum).  And they have actually posted a clearly signed detour that leads you out around the museum on Mill and back to the trail (it's exactly one block), so kudos to the company involved. 

Here's what it looked like this morning (sorry, crappy cell phone pics):

Yet another River Path Closure for the Summer.

It seems like they can't help but close a portion of the river path for the best riding times over the last few years.  Here's the latest closure for the building of the Southeast Connector bridge.

Please pass this information on to other bike groups, thanks.
Patrice Echola
RTC WASHOE
1105 Terminal Way, Suite 211
Reno, Nevada 89502 (775) 335-1904


Dear Stakeholder:
Beginning today, Wednesday, March 20 the pedestrian and bicycle trail along the Truckee River from Spice Island Drive at Cottonwood Park east to Larkin Circle will be closed. The path on Sparks Blvd. from Big Fish Dr. (Legends Mall) south to Greg St. will also be closed. Users will need to use an alternate route.  The Truckee River path will remain closed until mid-Summer 2013.  Attached is a map of the closure.
The closure is needed for the safety of motorists and construction crews as work continues on the RTC’s SouthEast Connector Project. Construction crews will be working with heavy equipment in the area to build the Truckee River Bridge.
For more information please contact the project office at 775-398-5059 or e-mail info@SouthEastConnector.com. Responses will be returned by the next business day.  Additional project information is available at www.SouthEastConnector.com.
Thank you for your patience and support. We look forward to working with you on this project!
Sincerely,
The Project Team

The SouthEast Connector Project is the RTC’s largest local public works project and includes building a regional road from the intersection of Greg Street and Sparks Boulevard south to South Meadows Parkway and Veterans Parkway. The first phase of construction builds the bridge over the Truckee River from Sparks Boulevard to just south of Clean Water Way and is currently under construction. The next phase will build the new roadway from Clean Water Way south to Veterans Parkway.  This phase - approximately 4.5 miles - is still under development, which involves obtaining environmental permits and the design of the roadway facilities.  This is the RTC’s first Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) project and resulted in approximately $6 million in value engineering benefits on the first phase. SouthEast Connector provides a significant economic investment in our community and creates immediate jobs during construction.

Here's the area they're talking about:

Basically from the letter A to the east end of the trail....Hopefully, we'll at least get decent bike facilities on the Southeast Connector for our trouble!?

Bridge work....

Well, I'm not saying the KTVN doesn't have their story straight, but the bridge was still open this morning about 7:45am.

Yep, pretty open.  No sign of any work or preparation, no signs indicating an impending closure, no nothing.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm actually glad to detour and get this bridge some much needed work!  Wifey would rate this bridge as somewhere between bone jarring and tailbone breaking....so a little TLC is definitely in order!

Here are the temporary patches that went down last year.

As you can see, the actual deck of the bridge is pretty rough.  I can't imagine hitting this thing on 23mm tires at 120 psi like some of the roadies that use the trail!

So bring on the work crews and closure.  But hey, Reno, if your listening.  How about some signage indicating the closure!

Bridge closure on the river trail....today through Feb. 15th!

Saw this over on KTVN Channel 2.

So for those of you who take the river path for your commute.....find yourself a detour!  If you don't know where John Champion Park is.....its here (see the A).

If you do need to get across the river your closest cross street is Sutro (about a 1/4 mile back from the bridge) and then you're pretty much stuck on 4th st. until Galletti Way, if you want to get back to the river path.  I'm sure they'll have it adequately signed for the detour (NOT)!

River path construction is complete!

The construction wrapped up in record time for the closure at the east end of Rock park.  There is now about 100 yards of brand new, silky smooth concrete trail under the Rock Blvd bridge!

I may not like the abrupt closure style they use on the path construction projects, or the lack of detours provided, but they sure did this one about as quickly as possible and it seems to be a really good result.  Turns out (after talking to some BPAC folks) the reason for the upgrade was purely due to the deteriorated condition of the trail in this section.  I ride it once in a while and didn't think it was that bad....but who am I to judge.  If I had my vote for worst portion of the river trail it would have to be the section along the automobile museum!

The only things I would have liked added to this particular project would have been a connection to the well used foot path that connects to the road above.

And it would make the area look a lot better if they cleaned up all the junk conduit that they left from the bridge construction!

River Path Construction.

After my "low stress" portion of the morning commute, I exit the river path at Rock park and head south on Rock Blvd.  As I was crossing the river on the bridge, I was looking down at the path and noticed a nice little barricade across the path.  I'm not sure what their up to.

If I had to guess, I'd bet something is wrong with the sprinkler system in the park and the removal of the asphalt in the trail is for a repair.  Let's hope they get ambitious and fix up the path while their at it!

Regression....to hoping.

The river path is a resource.....sometimes for runners, sometimes for cyclists, and sometimes for less desirable locals.  It is however, a resource (even infrastructure) and a really nice option if you need to travel between Reno and Sparks without using a car.  It is worth protecting and repairing and making every attempt to keep it up.  It's not that hard.  A phone call to the right place can go a long way. I still am impressed that one call to the Parks Department resulted in the number of lights working along the path going from 47% to over 90%!

Not everyone realizes this.  And in this case I mean these guys:

They were pretty good on the surface....they had ped/bike detour signs and took down the closure when they weren't actively working on the site.  However, their attention to detail on the reconstruction of the path leaves a lot to be desired. 

The work they did required a trench to be cut across the path and then the northern section of the path to have about 12-16 inches cut away.  Presumably to get access to some pipe, wire, etc.  They then should have back filled to a level grade and patched their work with fresh compacted and rolled asphalt.  They kind of did this.....

Except that they neglected to back fill to an adequate grade, lay the asphalt at the correct temperature, compact the asphalt roll it smooth, etc.  The result is a patch that is below grade (a noticeable bump) that will only compact further with time, the asphalt they did lay is already crumbling as you can see in the photos and has a large number of small open holes.  So they used too little asphalt and didn't compact it properly. 

In addition the strip they "replaced" along the northern edge of the trail is seriously graded (sloping) to the north.  An inattentive or inexperienced person catching this edge could easily be angled into the loose pea gravel and then down the river bank in a rather unfashionable method.   It's also about as smoothly rolled as a motocross track.

So all the details aside....we shouldn't have to tolerate this type of second class quality on our paths.  We wouldn't tolerate it if they guys rebuilding interstate 80 left us with this type of infrastructure!  Why is it ok to treat the non vehicle infrastructure in this way?

Hopefully, it's not.  Hopefully, a call to the Parks Department will have these guys back on site to fix their initial mess.  So I guess here's to hoping!

Bike Path construction update.

Last week (or earlier this week...can't remember) I posted on a closure of path at Broadhead park.  I did reach Jeff Mann of the Parks department and he told me it would be intermittent.  Turns out this was true as the closure had been moved off the trail on my ride home.

Yesterday, however, it was back and there was actually work being done!

I am actually impressed that they have signs specifically for this, including a bike/pedestrian detour sign. 

Unfortunately, if you follow the signs you'll be heading south indefinitely, as the signs on either side of the project are the only two signs present.  I get it, you just detour around a single city block and you're back on the trail.  It does beg for the question:  What if you did this type of detour to auto traffic (e.g. no signs)....I bet you'd have some pretty annoyed drivers!  Or what if someone unfamiliar with the trail and roads encountered this?  It just seems like another prime example of second class treatment when you're not automobile traffic.

Ok, so enough gripes on detours.  The path was already patched up by this morning.  They have cut some of the asphalt and laid new asphalt in it's place along one edge of the path.  The new asphalt seemed a little less than quality work (I could see holes here and there), but we'll see how it turns out once the completely wrap up.

Bike path closure at Broadhead Park.

If your commuting on the river path, there was an unannounced closure this morning.

This is really getting to be a bit of a pet peeve with me.  This is basically our highway if you commute between Reno and Sparks each morning.  Can you imagine if the I-80 construction was set up this way.  No warning, no detour, no alternate route posted.  I'm gonna guess any construction project operating in this manor on even a minor road used by automobiles would cause serious consternation (to put it mildly). 

Yet, when it's the bike path, a couple cones and please turn around and retrace your steps until you can find an alternate route yourself is just fine.  A double standard if the powers that be really consider a bicycle a valid method of transportation.  (I realize this is a dubious statement at best.)

Anyway, this is your heads up on the closure.  For the record, you are viewing the entire closure....yep, about 10-12 feet.  I used my advance cycling skills to ride through the construction site (sarcasm intended).  You should evaluate your own skills prior to such a crossing!  Based on the markings, I have a notion that they may be excavating across the trail soon.  So, be aware that this may turn into a real detour.  I'll make some calls and see if I can find out what's up.