The Rapid City Parks and Recreation Department has extended the following invitation:

You are invited to an Open House to view and comment on proposed improvements to the Rapid City Greenway Trails and Park System Project. The improvements include bike path and pedestrian path improvements near the Central States Fairgrounds, SDSM&T, Founders Park and Executive Golf Course. The project also includes facility improvements at Founders Park including a pedestrian bridge, landscaping, restrooms and parking improvements.

The Open House will be held on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM in the First Floor Community Room at the City/School Administration Center, 300 Sixth Street, Rapid City, SD  57701.

Questions should be directed to Brian Tideman, P.E. @ CETEC Engineering Services, Inc. (605) 341-7800.

In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” song, FRCP has some concerns about paving more of Rapid City’s green ribbon to accommodate parking. When the greenway is so popular that we have to cover it with parking spaces in order to enjoy it, we are in danger of loving our town’s most precious feature to death.

Friends of Rapid City Parks has been following the Founders Park improvements project since spring. We applaud the Parks Department for improvements to trails, but we have concerns that the “improvements” include a huge swath of paving from Founders Park all the way to Cross Street in order to add parking spaces.

We have met with Parks Department officials and designers of the project to express our ideas about avoiding the addition of hard surface in the greenway.

If you attend the Open House, ask about permeable surface, how many parking spaces are really needed (considering that neither the Farmers Market nor the proposed Whitewater Park will be at Founders in the future). You can read about the project here and download a copy of our comments.

Click to download a copy of our comments and concerns about the project.

FoundersFRCP

Take some time to get out into our wonderful parks to  celebrate this weekend!

Parks are among the beneficiaries of proposed projects using 2012 funding over the next several years. The three subcommittees reviewing Phase Four 2012 proposals made recommendations to the Rapid City city council in a special meeting June 30.

Among the projects that will occur in, or affect, Rapid City’s parks are repairs on Canyon Lake dam, creation of a new downtown park or “Main Street Square,” completion of bike trails in the Skyline Wilderness area, reconstruction of the swimming pool at Horace Mann park, and construction of a field house in the greenway at Roosevelt Park, between the current swim center and ice arena. (more…)