At last night’s city council meeting, the Consent Agenda (a bunch of stuff that passes with one vote, without discussion) included an item for “Pedestrian Trails and Sidewalk Improvements at the City of Denton Quakertown Park.” For $145,776, the city awarded a construction company contract to pour in this new network of concrete paths to connect all those formerly disparate parts of Quakertown Park. Currently, there is no paved path to navigate from the playground to city hall, or to the city pool, or to the civic center.
Given the proximity of hot-button agenda items like the gas-drilling moratorium, little items like this don’t get much attention. This improvement has been on the radar for some years, apparently, and just needed funding to see the light of day. It’s not big news, but it’s an incremental improvement that I think deserves a little shine. They’ll start construction in February and be done before Arts & Jazz, I bet.
Since the upcoming Bike Plan doesn’t prescribe a bike route from TWU to the train station/downtown, the new 8′ concrete shared path above could be a relaxed alternative to riding on Bell. Some traffic calming at nearby intersections would be a nice compliment to the park improvements, since so many people walk and bike to the park.