Fort Smith officials expect the first phase of a bike trail that will connect four Fort Smith parks to be completed within the next 2½ years.

The first phase of the trail, which will run from the Riverfront Skate and Bike Park to Martin Luther King Jr. Park, is expected to be completed by 2022, according to City Parks Director Doug Reinert. Reinert said the $2.5 million construction phase for the trail will be the first phase in the trail that will eventually run to Creekmore Park and the Kelley Ballfields.

Reinert said Parks Department workers will begin trail construction once utilities workers lay the sewer line to the P Street Wastewater Treatment Plant. Deputy Utility Engineering Director Michelle Dodroe in August 2018 said construction was expected to take 18 months. The trail will be covered with a 10-foot-wide hard surface over much of the line.

"That is all dictated by utilities work," Reinert said.

Reinert hopes the entire trail system once completed will tie into and thus expand the city's existing trail system. He also hopes the trail will connect neighborhoods to one another and give children an opportunity to travel from one park to the next.

These kinds of outdoor opportunities will help fulfill some of the requirements in the grant they applied for to fund the trails, he said.

"They want to have more outdoor opportunities as opposed to it going from one point to the other," Reinert said. "As you go down the trail system, you have some areas that could be associated with maybe a food truck or a coffee station, where you could take a bike ride and buy a cup of coffee, or take a bike ride, stop and get some ice cream or get some dinner and go about your day."