My dad and I rode our bikes from Alta to downtown on as much of the vaunted new Kellar trail as we could find. Getting from Alta to Pioneer Parkway was easy enough. Then we followed the blacktop sidewalk/trail to Sommer street, and rode down to Candletree. There we got a little confused, as there’s a green sign that says “Bike Route” with an arrow pointing to the right. However, the Kellar trail actually continues to the left.
Once we got that figured out, we were able to ride down to the intersection of Knoxville and Northmoor. There, we were unable to figure out where the trail went, so we followed the old rail corridor as best we could up to and across Knoxville where we found another paved portion of the trail — this one with a broken yellow line down the center. That took us as far as Glen Avenue, where the trail ended, never to be found again.
From there, we followed the old rail corridor to Prospect in Peoria Heights. After that, the corridor was choked with weeds (which is surprising since Peoria Heights made such a big stink about the condition of the corridor when the rail line was there), so we had to ride on streets parallel to the “trail.” Looking at the description of the Kellar trail that appeared in the Journal Star last November, it doesn’t look like any progress has been made since then. That’s also surprising, since I thought the Park District had sufficient grants to cover this rail-to-trail conversion — grants they were afraid of losing if they didn’t get used right away. Why is so much of the trail unfinished?
There were some other people on the trail between Alta and Peoria Heights. I counted 13. Given the hype of how popular this trail is supposed to be, and given the pavement markings creating lanes for traffic, I expected to see more people. I also expected to see more signs of commerce, since this trail is supposed to be an economic catalyst. It didn’t look like any of the people we passed had been shopping. I didn’t see any new commercial developments along the trail, either — no apartments or condos or McDonald’s.
As I encountered large and small gaps in the trail, I couldn’t help but wonder whatever happened to all those green signs demanding, “Build the Trail … NOW!” The project is incomplete, and there appears to be little or no progress, but we’re no longer hearing any angry demands to complete the project from the Friends of the Rock Island Trail or the other supporters. Perhaps the wanton destruction of a working rail line was success enough for them.
UPDATE: Mike Friberg, bike trail project manager for the Park District, explained the status of the project:
Just to let you know, the trail section from Northmoor to Candletree is actually still under the final phases of construction (the punchlist). We’re currently working with IDOT – our funding source- on the design for the trail section from Glen Ave. south to Springdale Cemetery. We’re still working on the temporary connection crossing Knoxville – that will go through Junction City and cross Knoxville at the Northmoor light. I fully agree that things are confusing right now, but give us a bit of time and we’ll get it worked out -the asphalt has barely cooled!
For current information (ok, yes, I need to update it more frequently!) you can look on the Park District’s main website and follow the links to the bike trail web page. I’m not sure on CJ’s restrictions on advertising here, so I’ll let you find the link on your own. [Here’s the link –C.J.] I also have a FAQ discussing some of the questions you raise above.
If anyone has any questions on the trail that the FAQ doesn’t address, or you just want to send fan mail, please feel free to contact me – my contact information is at the bottom of the bike trail page. Thanks!
My thanks to Mike for the additional information. Here is Mike’s contact info:
Mike Friberg
1314 N. Park Road
Peoria, IL 61604
(309) 686-3386
mfriberg@peoriaparks.org
There’s a map and information on how to get from segment to segment on a park district website (http://www.peoriaparks-planning.org/biketrail.html) – it’s a little hard to follow. It says: “Federal TIGER II grant applied for and denied in 2011. Reapplication for TIGER and ITEP funds will occur in 2011-2012. Will use leftover funds to begin design once all other sections are complete. Temporary routing utilizing signal at Northmoor and Knoxville is scheduled for June-August 2011.”
I’ve seen bikers/runners on the section from Northmoor to Pioneer Park – that’s how I noticed that portion was complete.
Perhaps it was just an off day on the trail. Like Kohlrabi, I see a number of runners and walkers using the trail in the early a.m. and equally as many or more families cycling on the trail during the mid-day.
I went to an open house on Manning/Teton (where a new section of the trail runs through)a few Sundays ago and it was teaming with activity. I don’t know about the Trail increasing commercial activity, but seeing families using the trail in the area made an otherwise aging neighborhood seem more vibrant and family friendly and made it more appearing for me to consider purchasing a home in this area.
Frustrated I agree with you – I live on Teton, and use the stretch between Giles and Teton and Pioneer Parkway almost everyday. Now that it’s starting to get cooler and dark out a little earlier, activity has definiteily decreased during the weeknights, but go out there on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon, and there are a lot of people out there biking and walking. But I agree, I don’t know how they ever thought it would increase commerical activity – it seems most people are out there exercising and probably aren’t going to stop at McDonalds or go shopping.
I think we can declare this boondoggle a failure.
For increased commercial activity this is the wrong approach. Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Chicago, Austin or other bike friendly places don’t rely on a bike trail for such. The cities and citizens have to embrace the idea of not driving every time they need to leave the house for something. For recreation purposes pieces of the trail can be used for daily exercise. For getting from A to B it’s not the best. When the weather is bad no one will use it.
It’s a shame to lose a working rail line, but the automobile killed that. While Macomb, Galesburg, Bloomington all have their stations, this area let it go like much other things. Not that driving to Bloomington and taking the train to Chicago is cost effective either.
It’s ironic that the Secretary of Transportation hails from this area. I would love to see Illinois be progressive in its train connectivity, bike/pedestrian comfortable streets, and intelligent bus networks, but I don’t plan on seeing it in my lifetime. Instead, more half assed trails to nowhere with nothing gained is probably more likely.
roguemonkey wrote: It’s a shame to lose a working rail line, but the automobile killed that.
The Kellar Branch survived as a freight-only line for nearly eighty years (the last regular passenger trains ended in January 1933).
Sorry David, must have been the work of semi trucks then. I-74 slicing through the city.
Hi everyone. I’m the project manager for the Park District for the bike trail. Just to let you know, the trail section from Northmoor to Candletree is actually still under the final phases of construction (the punchlist). We’re currently working with IDOT – our funding source- on the design for the trail section from Glen Ave. south to Springdale Cemetery. We’re still working on the temporary connection crossing Knoxville – that will go through Junction City and cross Knoxville at the Northmoor light. I fully agree that things are confusing right now, but give us a bit of time and we’ll get it worked out -the asphalt has barely cooled!
For current information (ok, yes, I need to update it more frequently!) you can look on the Park District’s main website and follow the links to the bike trail web page. I’m not sure on CJ’s restrictions on advertising here, so I’ll let you find the link on your own. I also have a FAQ discussing some of the questions you raise above.
If anyone has any questions on the trail that the FAQ doesn’t address, or you just want to send fan mail, please feel free to contact me – my contact information is at the bottom of the bike trail page. Thanks!
roguemonkey wrote; Sorry David, must have been the work of semi trucks then. I-74 slicing through the city.
Actually, it was two things:
(1) Pabst Brewing Co. closed its brewery in 1982, depriving the branchline of about 90 percent of its traffic.
(2) Unlike many other similar-sized cities in the region, Peoria has been grossly disinterested in industrial development. The Kellar Branch, combined with Growth Cell Two, could have been quite a success, and the unecessarily costly “western connection” would not have been such a waste of taxpayer dollars.
“the automobile killed that” Nonsense.
Plenty of well developed countries have thriving and distinct passenger rail alongside freight rail. The introduction of the automobile and trucking did not kill rail service. It is a matter of choice at the public policy level, not automobiles. Not surprisingly, those nations who chose to retain their rail service at a robust level have not suffered nearly as bad in the great recession as we are.
Actually, Mahkno, the automoble killed the privately-operated, non-subsidized passenger train. That trend actually started in the early 1920s as railroads emerged from federal control (and consequential higher costs) and faced publicly-funded hard road development. The Depression of the 1930s accelerated the decline, World War Two abated it briefly (due to gas rationing) and the construction of the Interstate Highway System from 1956 and the subsequent Jet Age nearly pulled life support.
When something is dependent on subsidies, it will always be subject to politics, right or wrong.
But with the Kellar Branch, the issue was always freight service and its potential. Trail proponents routinely lied about it and many of us who comment here challenged them with the facts. In the end, however, the railroads gave up on the line for economic reasons (as it should be), but this didn’t have to be the case either.
The Park District attested to the fact that they had more than $6 million dollars in hand to begin the trail immediately upon abaondonment by the railroad and that it was going to be absolutely fabulous. Going to bring commercial business to the area. Upgrade homes along the trail. People were going to be healthier because they were goign to walk or bike to and from work. They promised tons and tons of things. I have seen none of it. There are people on the trail but no more than was there before all the hullabaloo And what happened to the $6 million dollars? You sure don’t see it invested in the trail. If it is they didn’t get their monies worth. The Park District and the Trail advocates showed all kinds of beautiful pictures of the fabulous trail people were going to be able to traverse. I see none of it. Its more weed choked now than when the tracks were still there. We’ve been taken for a ride and it wasn’t on a train. And as we have said all along we could have had both the trail and the rail side by side like at least 38 other states do and enjoy it. But no it had to be all or nothing at all for the Park District. We could have had a park n ride trolley for cleaner air and gas savings, but they wanted none of that either. We would have been paying into the tax coffers of the city, but they wanted none of that either. So look what we have after more than a dozen years of battling just to share and benefit the community. Weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds.
Just checking…has anyone been indicted for the criminal means used to secure this trail? Just waiting for justice to prevail.
Von: Ouch!
When done correctly, this can absolutely spark commercial development. For an example, check out . There is absolutely no reason we cannot choose to make similar progress in Peoria.
The two problems with the Kellar Branch are its route and its disjointed state. The general public is not going to hunt around for the path at the points CJ noted, and getting out of the downtown riverfront is no better. We need a seamlessly connected system, and one that affords basic transportation between residences and daily destinations like shopping and work.
That said, bike infrastructure costs a fraction of automobile infrastructure, creates more jobs per dollar spent, and affects a higher percent of the population. Whatever your complaints about the Kellar Branch trail, we need a lot more dollars going this direction in this town.
Garth-
Sorry, I accidentally deleted part of my text above when I inserted the link. The first paragraph refers to Minneapolis’ Midtown Greenway. The link still works.
Again comparing Peoria to a much larger city (Minneapolis/St. Paul metro pop. is over 3 million)?
Unfortunately for local trail proponents, the whole Kellar Branch thing is just so 1990s. I’ve noticed a forum letter or two asserting the “Kellar Branch Trail” is inadequate. Bike paths along city streets are needed instead. Living in Dunlap, I understand this as streets get you places, not trails built on abandoned railroad rights-of-way. Up here, people don’t use the Rock Island Trail much; instead, they ride their bikes on Rt. 91 and Cedar Hills Drive.
We have a trail now,well parts of one. What we do not have is a library branch in Averyville..No money to support other projects in the older neighborhoods.Trucks this winter to plow snow. Two entire shifts of patrol officers..etc.
I remember when there was a library in Averyville.
We need basic transportation, as well. The question is whether we spend tons of money on a highly inefficient mode of transportation, or a tiny amount of money on the most efficient mode of transportation we have yet invented. Bike infrastructure costs very little (Portland’s entire system, installed over the last 20 years, cost the equivalent of one mile of freeway), and creates more jobs per dollar than automobile infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the Kellar Branch trail is not basic transportation infrastructure. It is disjointed and connects almost nothing. We need infrastructure between the core residential areas of the city and daily work and errand destinations, whether fully segregated or not.
There are plenty of comparably sized comparisons in Europe, just few examples at all in the U.S. However, the more salient difference between the Kellar Branch trail and the Minneapolis project is that the Midtown Greenway actually connects parts of the city. There is no reason you cannot do the same thing in a city the size of Peoria. Entire European nations have. I did see one residential for sale sign in a backyard fronting the Kellar Branch trail, but if you wanted to get most places you would still have to bike the roads. In fairness, the Kellar Branch trail seems intended to be recreational. I am simply suggesting entirely different goals.
Garth-
I just cannot believe the negativity I read above. It’s a bike trail for people that like to run/walk/ride bikes. Simple as that. Use it or don’t use it. If you feel the need to complain about something, please put your negative use to the big problems we have. Corrupt Governors, State budget debts, IRS scandals, etc. I would rather see tax money go into a project, than into a polititions pocket.