Oro Valley is moving forward with a 10-year plan to maintain, optimize and expand its trails and path systems, including the Chuck Huckelberry Loop.
Adopted by Oro Valley Town Council in April, the OV Trails Connect Master Plan comes 15 years after the town’s previous trail improvement efforts. Senior planner Kyle Packer said the current plan was able to get a lot more direct feedback from community members.
“The entire intent has been to meet the residents and users of all of our trails and paths where they are and gather feedback from them,” Packer said. “We recognize that it was time to get out in the community and learn what the community wants from their paths and trail systems nowadays.”
Apart from trailside chats and online surveys, Packer and his team gathered valuable data from online sporting apps such as Strava.
“They really showed us thousands of trips and destination points and origin points that guided us towards which trail systems and path systems are being used the most,” he said.
One of the goals of the new plan is to reinvest in existing assets, such as adding water fountains and bicycle racks at the highest use or appropriate trailheads, attracting cafes or other businesses near paved path routes and encouraging Wi-Fi and/or cellular coverage along all trails.
“We want folks to be able to get out into nature and experience nature just as it is,” Packer said. “But we also want folks to be able to have something more akin to a river walk, or a sense [that] they've got easy access from their home throughout our community. That includes access to the businesses.”
While most of the residents were content with what they have, Packer said their wishes included the proper maintenance of trails.
“One of the loudest things that we heard was about how to expand volunteer efforts and ensure the community that there is funding to make sure that the trails and systems everyone has today are going to continue to be there for them in the future,” he said. “Oro Valley has a very engaged community. During our online survey, about two-thirds of respondents said that they wanted to donate time, money or both.” In the first two years of the program, priorities will be adding signage and safety elements to the trails and paths.
“Signage is made up of way signs helping folks navigate the trail systems and not get lost,” Packer said. “There's some educational signs, but the safety focuses on directional signage, potentially mile markers or identifying rescue points for those trail systems where folks may have rescue concerns.”
The Oro Valley Trails Connect Masterplan can be found here.
