The Riverside Trail

Opened in phases, 2007–2008; the west bank north

The opening: The Riverside Trail's opening is documented to the day, by the city itself. On 19 July 2007, Mayor Stephen J. Luecke led walkers, runners, skaters, and bicyclists through a ribbon to open the trail's first 1.75 miles, from Angela Boulevard north to Oakwood Boulevard. The Mayor's Office news release that records the opening is a builder's document: the first phase cost $1.79 million; it laid 9,225 feet of path, ten feet wide — more than 1,600 tons of asphalt over 3,500 tons of compacted aggregate — with over 1,000 feet of decorative steel railing, five fishing and viewing "nodes," and six marked pedestrian crossings; LaPorte Construction was the general contractor, the Troyer Group designed it with city engineering staff, and South Bend's share of the federal gas tax, through the Federal Highway Administration's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, paid eighty percent, the city's general fund the rest. The release also records what stood behind the project: residents had named trails a top priority in City Plan, the city's twenty-year comprehensive plan, and the mayor had directed in his 2007 State of the City address that a riverwalk system be completed from Logan Street to Darden Road in City Plan's first five years.

The second phase — Oakwood Boulevard north to Darden Road — was announced the same day, to begin early in 2008 with completion anticipated that fall, bringing the trail to 3.2 miles from Angela to Darden, where, the release states, St. Joseph County would complete in 2008 a federally aided multipurpose trail east along Darden Road to Indiana 933: the county's Darden Road Trail. The built trail stands today as those documents describe it, running past Pinhook Park and Keller Park to Darden Road, where the Darden Bridge connects it northward to the LaSalle Trail. Its published length splits by carrier, as this system's lengths do: TrailLink measures the trail at 3.4 miles; the River Valley Trail partnership counts South Bend's Riverside Trail at 2.5 miles. The 2007 release's own words frame the whole west-bank effort: "The City of South Bend's commitment to a dedicated walking and bicycle trail along the St. Joseph River began in the 1970s," and completing the Riverside segment "will bring the total trail system to more than 11 miles in length." Judith Robert, chair of the Paint the Town … With Bicycle Lanes Coalition and a Riverside Drive resident, spoke at the opening — the advocacy era that produced the trail, documented in the civic-history article below, was at the ribbon-cutting in person.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Office of the Mayor, news release, 19 July 2007, "Riverside Trail officially opens; next phase by fall 2008" (docs.southbendin.gov) (the opening, the first phase's cost and construction figures, the funding, the second phase and the county's Darden Road Trail, the 1970s commitment line, the 11-mile system figure).
2. TrailLink (Rails-to-Trails Conservancy), Riverside Trail (IN) (the 3.4-mile measured length).
3. Indiana Michigan River Valley Trail partnership accounting, published by the City of Niles, 2020 (the 2.5-mile partnership count).