Trail of neglect: What can Salt Lake City learn from the suburbs about the Jordan River Trail?

Editor’s note • This is the second installment of a three-part series on the challenges and triumphs of the Jordan River Trail, produced in partnership with City Cast Salt Lake. Each week, a podcast will follow publication of a new installment. Subscribe to City Cast to receive each episode in your favorite podcast feed. Read Part 1 here. Listen to the first podcast here.

Part 2.

Murray • In the middle of a warm workday in late August, the Jordan River Trail was alive.

A pack of cyclists pedaled past the Kennecott Nature Center, some leisurely, others in a rush to get somewhere. Farther north — and, oddly, downstream — where Little Cottonwood Creek meets the river, a couple were skipping stones from a low, rocky bank.

Three separate maintenance workers, meanwhile, were tending to this stretch of the river corridor (a sight less common in Salt Lake City), clearing brush and spraying weeds in the path’s cracked pavement.

The problems that plague the trail in Utah’s capital sometimes find their way south, albeit to a lesser degree. Vandals tag signs. Homeless Utahns set up illegal camps. Trash winds up in the water.

The river isn’t without its own set of issues down here. Springtime runoff routinely floods underpasses, rerouting cyclists across major roads like 7800 South.

But, in many ways, these segments of the trail thrive.

“It’s a linear oasis through the middle of this valley, and it provides probably as much recreational benefit to the community and the state as a whole, just as our Wasatch Front mountains do,” said Angelo Calacino, a project manager with the Salt Lake County of Parks and Recreation division. “It’s priceless, to be honest.”

Salt Lake City residents have long expressed frustration with what they see as lacking maintenance of the river and the parks alongside it, pointing to how it looks farther south as an example of what the path could be — and how it could be used — in their backyard.

Down here, the corridor is often wider — and more wild — with more amenities than those offered in Utah’s most populous city. Cyclists are more likely to stop for a riverside lunch after a long ride, and joggers are less likely to dodge drug deals.

Put simply, the trail is just a tad nicer.

A healthier corridor

There’s an unavoidable truth about the primary concern along the trail in Salt Lake City: It’s easier to live outside there.

The city is a hub for services and has more ways to get to those services. Most of the Salt Lake Valley’s outreach workers are there. It’s where you go for help.

But the features that make the trail more inviting south of the city didn’t happen by accident, either.

On this stretch, two nature hubs, Tracy Aviary’s Nature Center at Pia Okwai and the Kennecott property, anchor the path in South Salt Lake and Murray, respectively.

Larger preserves and natural areas flank the waterway — like Redwood Natural Area in West Valley City and Galena-Soónkahni Preserve in Draper, giving the path an untamed feel. Another 70 acres of riverside open space, called Big Bend, in West Jordan is getting a $3.5 million investment as officials look to restore the land by planting native greenery, opening a second river channel and creating more flood plain.

“The number one thing that people ask for in Salt Lake County is natural areas, trails,” said Soren Simonsen, executive director of the Jordan River Commission. “We love ball fields and all of the play places, but people really long to have these kinds of areas that connect them and give them a pause from the hustle and bustle of a big city.”

Both the full river corridor and the paved path itself are wider in portions farther south, where the trail is newer. In Salt Lake City, blind corners and narrow pavement often bedevil bikers and walkers, sometimes spurring tensions between users.

Unlike many of the country’s major waterways, little commercial development has ever faced the Jordan River, due largely to its historic flooding problems and later industrial uses. That means as bikers, hikers and joggers head down the path, there are few options to stop off for lunch or coffee.

That’s starting to change in the suburbs.

Facing the river

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the staff at Knickerbockers Deli feared the worst. All three of the sandwich chain’s shops are located in business parks, and, well, there wasn’t much business happening.

The South Jordan riverside shop, however, surfaced a new stream of customers.

When the global health crisis forced workers out of their offices and into their homes — and, in growing numbers, onto public lands — Knickerbockers had a new way to stay afloat.

The shop put signs out on the trail directing cyclists and walkers to its front door. More people found the shop, but they still had to climb a grassy hill to get there because this place wasn’t built to serve trail users.

A newly constructed exit path off the main trail now leads directly to the deli’s front door and patio.

“It’s nice because you get these people that are just out enjoying [themselves] and they just want to stop even for just a cup of coffee or a quick breakfast burrito,” General Manager Courtney Howe said. “So, it’s been nice ever since they opened that exit, because we were able to put a sign right there. And yesterday you should have seen — this whole patio was full of bikers.”

Now, breakfast is booming, Howe said, with cyclists suggesting she create a punch card or other promotion to encourage more people to stop at the restaurant while using the trail.

Nearby, two other businesses have signs on the path: national electric bike retailer Pedego and restaurant Recharge Pub & Grub, which has a paved path leading straight to its patio from the byway.

Farther north, West Jordan Mayor Dirk Burton, a lifelong Jordan River lover, often rides his bike along the path to grab a sandwich at Happy Camper Deli and Bakery in Gardner Village. The small shopping mall, anchored by the historic Gardner Mill, has a short spur that connects it to the trail just north of 7800 South.

“You get refreshed,” he said. “You go on your way.”

Burton recently took a ride on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail in northern Virginia, where little shops catering to bicyclists dot the byway’s length. He wants the Salt Lake Valley to take a similar path.

“I’d love to see a couple of those things out here,” he said, “but we need to get more people using the trail to make it worthwhile for the business[es] to come down to it.”

What Salt Lake City learn from its southern suburbs

Salt Lake City’s river byway lacks that crucial customer base, due in no small part to a proliferation of homeless camps, drug activity and vandalism.

While the city grapples with those persistent problems, other hurdles in Utah’s capital are inescapable.

The waterway largely winds through older, established residential neighborhoods built close to the river’s edge, allowing few, if any, opportunities for businesses to pop up. Where properties along the corridor are zoned for commercial use, they’re home to auto shops, nonprofits and trucking businesses.

The quality of riverside natural spaces, meanwhile, is a matter of prioritization.

While places like Galena-Soónkahni Preserve in Draper and Big Bend in West Jordan function as destinations for trail users, Salt Lake City has only one protected natural area along the river: the Fife Wetland Preserve. And it’s easy to miss — even though it’s tucked a stone’s throw from the International Peace Gardens — because it lacks attention from the city.

Some, though, are working to end the pattern of neglect along the corridor and welcome more people to the river’s banks in Utah’s capital.

Could two ambitious projects — including a massive undertaking from one of Utah’s most influential companies — unlock the trail’s potential?

More on that in Part 3.

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.