Bike Friendly Richardson

We’ve been keeping an eye on the construction of the southern extension of the Central Trail.

Central Trail is the trail that runs parallel to Central Expressway, along the DART Rail Red Line tracks. Currently, it starts at Renner Road at Routh Creek Parkway (where it connects to the Spring Creek Trail), and runs south to DART’s Arapaho Center Station – well, sort of. In our opinion, it really stops at about Alma Road, and becomes a sidewalk, along Greenville, until it reaches Arapaho Center Station. Read more about that here.

This new addition is designed to extend Central Trail south, from Arapaho Road to Buckingham Road – at the city limit. Future extensions will eventually connect it to the White Rock Creek Trail. We were also given some information that lead us to believe that the trail extension will connect to the Arapaho Center Station train platform, instead of the bus transfer station on the east side of Greenville Road. That would be fantastic if it actually happens.

Once this extension is complete, people will be able to walk or ride their bikes to three of the four DART train stations in Richardson (Spring Valley, Arapaho Center and Galatyn Park). The Bush Turnpike Station will have to wait for a future extension.

Here are some pics and descriptions of the current progress:

This shot was taken at the southwest corner of Arapaho Road And Greenville Avenue. You can see the DART tracks to the right and Greenville Avenue to the left.

This shot was taken a bit further south along Greenville Avenue. As you can see, they’re making every effort to save the trees.

This shot was taken even further south along Greenville Avenue. Here you can see how the trail will coexist with the DART Red Line.

This pic was taken just south of the Jackson Street crossing.

As you can see, the trail isn’t ready to ride.

As the trail approaches Belt Line Road, it actually crosses under the DART Rail track overpass.

This is where the trail will cross Belt Line Road. The city has decided that the light at Interurban will be the best place to cross.

Once across Belt Line Road, the trail is lost at this parking lot entrance. It eventually begins again at the rail underpass.

The trail construction seems to end at Polk Street.

I rode a bit further south to find this bridge being built at Phillips Street. Not seeing a current plan, I can only guess that this will have a roll in the extension of Central Trail.

I didn’t get a chance to ride down to Spring Valley Station. I’ll try to get down there next weekend to check on any progress down there.