Bad Behavior Out Of Control At Trail Construction Sites

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From riding around barricades and cutting down fencing to cussing out construction workers and leaving a path of damage, the bad behavior is out of control at trail construction sites in the Des Moines area. Cities and counties are re-enforcing their blockades, but are afraid nothing will work.

The Stories

I spoke with three local government employees who oversee trails for their respective entities:

• Curt Cable, Conservation Director for Dallas County

• Colby Fangman, Deputy Senior Park Planner for the City of Des Moines

• Adam Fendrick, Parks Planner for Polk County Conservation

All three had an endless supply of anecdotes about people who take it too far when confronted with a closure at a trail construction site. Here’s a sample of what they told me they’ve dealt with over the years:

Cable: “On every project that we’ve done, it happens. People go around the barricades. They’ll walk across the bridge planks and carry their bike across and continue to go. We’ve had them go down into the creek bed, walk across the creek and then back up. And sometimes they’re actually going on private property.”

Fangman: “A biker stopped a contractor, got in their face and screamed, ‘Are you f*****g r******d?’ I hate that term. It shakes you to have someone scream that in your face.”

Fendrick: “We did have an individual ride through two barricades and crash and get hurt. I think EMS was called, but some minor injuries were reported on there.”

Cable: “Somebody had climbed over the fence and then they didn’t know how to get out. They were still in there the next morning when the contractor got there. The contractor had to open the padlock and let them out.”

Fangman: “We had a six-foot-tall chain link fence closing off the bridge on both sides and I watched two adults lift a child in a stroller up over the fence. One of them climbed over, they lifted the stroller up, and there’s skid loaders working on the bridge.”

Fendrick: “Someone rode through the barricade and they did leave tire marks in wet concrete. Luckily the contractor was still there – and they were yelling at this guy to stop – and he continued through and rode through wet concrete. And he was one of the gentlemen that was argumentative back at the contractor.”

I didn’t even include the stories about how a couple of people shoved a railroad inspector down an embankment when he tried to stop them from carrying their bikes over the tracks. Or the person who stole a bulldozer from a construction site and left it in a wetland. Or the person who rode full speed at a worker guarding a construction gate and only stopped when their front tire went right between that worker’s legs.

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The Damage

When barricades are ignored, the aftermath is often plain to see.

The scars are obvious along the Karras-Kaul Connector Trail, which just opened this past fall on the southeast side of Des Moines. Before the trail was ready to go, Colby Fangman said a cyclist rode through six layers of barricades and into wet pavement curing compound and then into wet and soft concrete.

“All of a sudden there’s $20,000 in damages. We don’t have $20,000,” Fangman said. “The contractor at the time just buffed it out the best they could to get it complaint and liability-free. It’s going to be ugly, but they ended up saving the day by buffing it out.”

Building new trails is not only expensive, but also time-consuming since grants usually need to be secured to complete the project.

Fangman said money is also tight for maintaining the 80-plus miles of existing trails in Des Moines. He said the city spends about $200,000 per year to repair concrete. The work is mostly done by one full-time employee and another part-time worker.

At the Polk County Conservation Department, Adam Fendrick said a contractor was recently able to repair tire marks left by an over-eager cyclist on the resurfaced Great Western Trail before it was open last fall.

Curt Cable at Dallas County said so far the damage has not amounted to much financially, but it easily could.

“If they get around there and we have wet cement and they walk through it, which has happened multiple times, we either have to live with that or we have to tear it out. And that is a cost not only for the contractor, depending on the contractor, or for us to repair that, which would be the taxpayer,” Cable said.

Fencing and barricades are also regularly damaged or destroyed, making project costs increase. That’s money that could be spent on maintaining and building trails.

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Strengthening Defenses

One sign of how bad things have gotten can be seen near Mullets just south of downtown Des Moines. It’s hard to miss the temporary wall built out of stacked guard rails, blocking off the SW 1^st  St. pedestrian bridge, where a new park will soon be built.

“That’s what it takes to keep the bad actors out,” Fangman said.

Des Moines has even resorted to enlisting police officers for several years now, to keep trespassers out of construction sites. The parks and recreation department has a discretionary budget to use police resources as needed. Fangman said it has become standard practice to proactively have an officer present on critical work days.

“When there’s a uniformed officer there, everybody all of a sudden toes the line and turns around,” Fangman said.

Fendrick said Polk County has not used law enforcement officers to guard its sites.

“We can’t. We don’t have the resources to patrol,” he said. “The only thing we have is these physical barricades.”

Fendrick said the county will likely start upgrading from the current method of putting up snow fences around the immediate work zones.

“You’re probably going to start to see us move to more hard-style barricade systems such as steel gates. And this is going to make the cost of our trails increase for maintenance when we have to do these harder barricades,” Fendrick said.

Dallas County has already ditched snow fencing in exchange for chain-link fences at its biggest trail construction site of the season: the Raccoon River Valley Trail. Three bridges east of Adel are being widened and repaired and the trail is being resurfaced.

The county started using chain-link fencing on an earlier phase of this project last year. It wasn’t enough to keep trespassers away then, and Cable said people have already gotten past the fencing this year.

“It’s for the trail users’ safety. We don’t want them going in there. We don’t want the contractor to worry about hurting somebody by not seeing them,” Cable said.

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Appeal To Cyclists

Cable, Fangman and Fendrick all agree the trespassing issue is nothing new. But Fendrick said he believes people are getting bolder.

“It used to be, ten years ago, we could put up some construction nylon fencing. And over the weekend, someone would go through it and that would be it and we’d go replace the fence and for the most part everything would be OK,” Fendrick said. “That seems to be a thing of the past, where people are going through these construction sites during working hours when the contractor is on-site, working.”

Dallas and Polk counties do not offer official detour routes. Fendrick said their trails’ mostly rural settings do not allow for it. He admits the county could do a better job of communicating when trails are closing and opening.

“There is a gap in communication there. Right now on our county Facebook page, we’ll post that a trail is going to be closed. But we’re really relying on more of the private sector, some of those other groups, to get the word out. It seems like those Facebook pages get more hits,” Fendrick said.

Fangman said city staffers keep an eye on social media chatter. He asks that cyclists refrain from spreading misinformation about trails being open before they are ready for riders.

“You’re getting people excited and whenever you do a posting, all of a sudden we see a big ramp-up of people entering the corridor,” Fangman said.

“When they go around the barricades, I think a vast majority of them don’t have ill intentions, they just want to keep enjoying their ride,” Fendrick said. “It’s those that are riding through wet concrete, cursing out the contractor – those are the bad actors.”

Fangman said he is glad to see people are excited to check out new trails. But cyclists need to cool their jets until the trail is actually ready.

“If you can wait, it’s going to be better,” he said.

Other Useful Info I Gathered

• Des Moines’ largest projects this year include phase one of the Central Place Trail, and Southeast Connector Trail.

• The Carl Voss Trail between SE 6^th St. and Scott Ave., and the Meredith Trail between SE 1^st St. and the SW 5^th St. pedestrian bridge (the green bridge) should reopen by June.

• Polk County’s biggest project this year is the trail along Broadway just north of Des Moines city limits.

• Dallas County’s Raccoon River Valley Trail project should be finished by late summer or early fall.

Let’s End On A Positive Note

The Polk County Conservation Department is planting nearly 400 trees along the High Trestle Trail in April! They need your help to get it done. Click here for more info and to sign up to volunteer.