Ranging from large, multi-use trails that offer a wide variety of recreation and transportation uses to nature trails that create opportunities to enjoy the natural environments within a city, most people would agree that trails help contribute to the overall quality of life.
Deciding on the best trail surface is important.
As more cities embrace the popularity of trails and add to their inventory, officials end up dealing with some difficult issues regarding costs. Balancing the initial cost of development with long-term maintenance costs becomes increasingly important as budgets are stretched thin. Good judgment and sound design become even more important if cities are to meet the goal of providing good service in the most cost-effective manner possible.
Columbia, Mo., has experienced a growth in trail popularity over the past 30 years, and has learned by experience the importance of making sound judgments when it comes to trail design. In 1978, the city began its commitment to build a network of trails by choosing to convert the abandoned MKT Railroad spur line to a recreation trail.
Breaking It Down
After years of public support, the city now offers over 40 miles of trails with several being designed for construction in the near future.
Design and material selection will often be the most important decisions, and can have a major impact on annual maintenance costs. Columbia officials decided to explore the cost of maintaining the larger recreation trails with a cost comparison of concrete, asphalt and gravel surfaces:
Columbia’s topography is well-suited for trail planning, and provides many miles of ideal trail alignments along its 10 major creeks. This bottomland is becoming one of Columbia’s most valuable natural landscapes, and is targeted for preservation throughout the city. It also serves as an ideal setting for many of the large multi-use recreation trails identified in the city’s trails master plan.
The cost comparison of the three trail-surface options has provided planners with an accurate analysis for future maintenance costs. The larger and more heavily used trails will have the greatest impact on budgets.
Making Choices
In general, trails in larger parks generate heavier use, and will require a trail design that appeals to a more diverse user group. Heavier use will also result in a new set of expectations for trail quality, and dictates the need to make some tough decisions on how best to stretch the dollars. These choices are generally focused on two options:
• Design the project to achieve the higher-quality standards, and reduce long-term maintenance costs
• Reduce the quality to build the project within budget.
The large multi-use recreation trails have become quite popular among residents. Heavier use levels and higher quality expectations have resulted in the need to improve both trail quality and year-round usability. The early days of trail development were based on lower expectations for trail quality, and the use of gravel was the accepted norm.
As the trail system has grown, it is now apparent that the annual maintenance budget to repair gravel trails is not keeping up with the growth of the trail system. The end result has been the development of a new standard that incorporates the benefits of concrete for durability and year-round use with a gravel side path for runners. This new standard is more costly to build, but its benefits far outweigh the cost difference over time.
Choosing the high standard to add quality and reduce maintenance costs sounds like an easy decision, but it’s obvious that sacrifices are generally required to make this change. Sometimes the change to a higher standard will not be possible, but it’s still important to recognize the real costs associated with each design decision. This information will help establish more accurate budget figures for maintenance, and also shed light on the long-term costs associated with each project.
The popularity and continued growth of municipal trail systems has required cities to carefully evaluate how they choose to meet this demand. The result of this decision-making process will have a lasting impact–not only the quality of the experience for users–but also the future costs associated with each trail. Assuring that the maintenance costs are reasonable will provide lasting benefits to municipalities as they struggle to be cost-effective in meeting demand.
Steve Saitta is the planning and development superintendent for the city of Columbia, Missouri’s parks and recreation department. He can be reached via e-mail at SMS@GoColumbiaMO.com.
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There is a hybrid way to enjoy the benefits of the three trail surfaces. Path designers can now chose pervious concrete pavement that provides the durability of concrete. It can be made using fine crushed asphalt rock that will look more natural rock pathways than standard concrete-it can even be colored brown if desired. Path designers may also want to take a look at new paving equipment for the pervious concrete that can dramatically decrease the cost of installing the concrete pavement. There is a video on our website www.evolutionpaving.com that shows the paver installing pathways in an Austin, Texas public park.
The pervious concrete is also listed as a best management practice by the Environmental Protection Agency and it complies with new stormwater treatment requirements that requires treatment for stormwater runoff.
Scott Erickson
Pervious concrete, particularly fine-grain pervious concrete, could be used to gain the benefit of zero runoff with the strength and durability of concrete. Pricing is about the same, and the benefits are greater. We’ve installed over 100,000 square feet of pervious concrete trails and pathways in the last two years, with increasing demand for use of pervious concrete.
Where are you from? We were always told that pervious concrete cost more. What is the maintenance required of pervious concrete? Does your city build their own trails? Do you have the spec for pervious concrete composition? I really look forward to hearing back from you. Thanks.
Can you give me typical costs per SY for fine grain pervious concrete trail, 10-ft wide? Also, annual maintenance costs per mile?
Please advise.
It would be better if trail surfacing can be chosen to match the use of the trail. Often multiple trail surfaces are most appropriate, for example a wood chip trail next to a paved trail. We have ongoing conflicts over solid surfaces vs more resilient surfaces from our trail users.
One trail surface not mentioned is interlocking pavers. These have the great maintenance advantage of being able to replace small sections and replace them with very little material cost. Areas of tree roots, frost heaves, salt/de-icer damage or trenching can benefit by the advantages of pavers. Pavers are also very popular with the public, at least here. Because of the economic downturn we are finding the initial cost of pavers is getting lower and is in many cases less than good concrete.
Despite the cost I’m not sure there is a better multi-use surface than a well maintained fine gravel. I’d rather put money into good maintenance practices than up-front materials. Creating more entry level trail maintenance positions might be a good use of funds in the current high unemployment era.