BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Tuesday, May 30 wrapped up the school year for many school districts across our area. In Bentonville, a group Willowbrook Elementary School students biked to campus, despite having to cross some busy roads.
Every day, members of the Willowbrook Elementary School parent-teacher organization lead a bike train consisting of students who live in the Lochmoor Club subdivision to school every day.
The Bentonville school district doesn’t have bus stops within a mile of a school, so mom and PTO member Jen Standerfer says they started the bike train as a safe solution to get students through this busy part of town to class.
“It makes us more visible when we're together, people see us. So right now we do have flashing lights at the crosswalk. And we have an officer who helps us but even with that cars will blow through the crosswalk. But when they see 30 or 40 kids with parents in yellow, they slow down,” said Standerfer.
Willowbrook Elementary Principal Christina Hamilton says so many families bike or walk to school that they even won a grant to get more bike racks.
“With very busy traffic and lots of kids everywhere, the sidewalks can't really sustain the number of children that we are releasing and bringing in each day. With the extra staffing, our parent-teacher organization, and our SRO officer Isabel, we've been able to be proactive,” said Christina Hamilton.
City of Bentonville Parks and Recreation Director David Wright says the city has built a trail across the school property up to a field a developer intends to build on, but no plans have been approved by the city.
“We have approached this developer saying 'Hey, would you be willing to grant us a trail easement across this property… If you would give us that trail easement we will pay for the trail to be built today,'” said David Wright.
Wright says this offer has been made three times as recently as last week but the developer has declined, and that if the developer doesn’t allow the city to build the trail, then the city’s bicycle and pedestrian plan will require one to be built at the expense of the developer.
Wright also says that the city will continue to build the trail around this land with hopes the developer will grant an easement.
“In the next month or so we'll build a gator road towards the west, all the way to Morningstar Road that will include a trail project along with it. So as future development occurs along that future-developed Gator road, you're going to see a trail already in place,” he said.
The developer of the new subdivision declined to comment when 5NEWS reached out.
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