A Bridge to the Future: New trail bridge open to the public

Dedication ceremonies for the Peoria Park District Rock Island Greenway Knoxville Bridge were deliberately designed to span future and past.

Kids first.  

"Come on. Sit down. Sit. Sit," former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told a couple dozen youngsters as they scampered forward and plopped beside him. "You're all going to be on TV."

A key speaker at the July 24 grand opening ceremonies, LaHood had invited children and bicyclists to join him at the podium. A crowd of at least 150 people had assembled on a picture-perfect morning at Junction City. It included all current members of the park board, a sprinkling of former park board members, a hefty chunk of the staff and a sizable number of local dignitaries.

But LaHood said he wanted to emphasize the folks who are going to use the hiking/biking trail more than those who built it, including himself.

"These young people and these cyclists and all the people who are on the trail now: That's who this dedication is about today," he said.

Not that anyone forgot the trail travails.

Building what was long called the Rock Island Trail has taken decades of patient land acquisition and persistence in the face of apparently endless legal and bureaucratic entanglements. The 13-mile greenway through Peoria may have been one of the trickiest parts. It has been 21 years since the City of Peoria asked the Park District to help find money to build a trail on its Kellar Branch rail line. Even when grants were acquired, hurdles were raised to using them. The battle worked its way through the federal Surface Transportation Board and required the formation of a not-for-profit entity called the Kellar Branch Corporation to broker a deal.

Even then, the long-planned access beneath Knoxville Avenue required adjustments. Utility lines prevented a tunnel beneath the street. Park District Executive Director Bonnie Noble decided to go over, instead of under, with a bridge. Such a switch is easier said than done given grant and funding requirements.  

“Time and time again, I said, ‘This isn’t going to go’,” said Park Board President Tim Cassidy. “Bonnie just kept going forward.”

Noble has been involved with the park district  ̶  and the trail  ̶  for more than 40 years. She served as a park board member and president even before she became executive director.

“My first meeting at the park district, it was about buying the tunnel under Route 6,” she said. “We actually paid like $40,000. That was sort of the kick off to the whole thing.”

Yet she said she could not improve upon comments made by former Peoria City Councilman Bruce Brown. The chef/owner of Paparazzi in Peoria Heights allowed his restaurant to be used for countless trail meetings when business was officially closed to other customers. Like Noble, he is one of the few people left alive who have been involved in this effort since the beginning. And he was near tears offering a tribute to the past, particularly the late Bill and Hazel Rutherford, and their dog Frosty.

Shortly after the Bicentennial in July 1976, Brown said, the environmentalist Rutherford asked him to go out to Alta and consider the idea of a linear park. Eyeing a decrepit bridge that “would have collapsed” beneath the weight of a quarter, Brown asked Rutherford how such a mammoth undertaking could be accomplished.

“ ‘Councilman Brown, we’re going to do this by force of will and content of character’,” he quoted Rutherford. “ ‘Will you help us?’ ”

To summarize the ensuing struggle of near-Biblical proportions, Brown paraphrased the Book of Isaiah, referring to various trail obstacles and triumphs. The Lord, he said, “makes the Surface Transportation Board and corporation counsel and sometimes strip club owners as nothing.” The Lord, he said, “shines His light upon park district executives.” As a result, he said, those who wait on the Lord rise up as eagles.

“They shall walk on the trail and not be weary,” Brown said. “They shall run on the trail and not be faint.”

Actually, they’ve already started. The bridge, which spans Knoxville Avenue just south of its intersection with Prospect Road, was completed about three weeks ago. It was placed here, one of the busiest and most dangerous spots along the trail, for the safety of its users. 

As he spoke to the crowd, LaHood gestured at those walking and cycling on bridge arcing behind him. Then he focused on the children seated around him. A few of them were grandchildren he shares with Noble, since their children are married.

"This bridge will be here for the next 100 years," LaHood said. "One day, one of these young people will be standing here holding the microphone."

                     

Terry Bibo can be reached at terry.bibo.freelance@gmail.com.