One Thousand Feet

We have to hand it to the town of Truckee when it comes to multi-use trails for walking and cyclists. You can get to just about any major location around town walking or riding on these Class 1 trails. There’s just a few places where gaps exist while the town waits for some developer to finish a critical section. It so happens that the proposed Brockway Collective development is “ground zero” for danger as a pedestrian or cyclist.

A great Class 1 paved bike trail is available from the Truckee Regional Park all of the way to Mountain Home Center. Truth be told, that trail actually connects all of the way to Glenshire. Roughly 5 years ago, the town also completed a short section of trail from Hope Court to the light at Highway 267.

This leaves just a short 1000 foot section of Brockway Road with only a narrow Class 2 bike lane and a dirt shoulder. You are sharing the edge of the road with cars that are allowed to go 45 mph. It is insanity that this section of trail has not been completed yet. Unfortunately, the last plan for trails, completed 10 years ago planned for a trail on the east side of the road, to be paid for bye the Soaring Ranch Phase IV. That development is likely a dozen years out at best.

We have an opportunity here to fix this issue. It’s beyond time to reassess the bike trails plan and build that last 1000 feet of trail on the west side of the road, paid for by the developers of the Brockway Collective. So far, there is no indication that either the town or the developer has considered this idea.

Currently, a large chunk of pedestrian and bike traffic avoids this stretch of road by coming down Columbine Road or through the Sierra Bible Church parking lot to access dirt trails across the wetlands to get to Hope Court. There’s several popular destinations across Highway 267: the Truckee Bike Park and Sports Park, Raleys, Ace Hardware and the other tenants at the Soaring Way center.

This is just one of many real topics that need discussion while looking at this massive development in our back yards.