Lions Park: how a forgotten Moab city park became a trail and transit gateway

The Lions Park parking lot in Moab, Utah. Photo: National Park Service.

Moab, Utah, has a little over 5,000 residents and is surrounded by some of the country's most spectacular natural areas, including two national parks, state and city parks and an extensive trail network. Moab and the larger Grand County welcome 2.5 million visitors a year, and the city and county began to see severe vehicle congestion that strained both natural and personnel resources. A National Park Service story describes how a small, overlooked park helped ease that.

An underused space

About three miles north of Moab is Lions Park, a small, seemingly inconsequential city-run green space. A visitor information specialist at the Bureau of Land Management's Moab Field Office called it a forgotten place. It had been maintained and revered by a group of dedicated people, then dropped off the radar as other, more accessible parks took over.

What it had was a location. Lions Park sits just south, across the Colorado River, from Arches National Park, directly north of downtown Moab, and northeast of Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park. It connects directly to paved trails that serve as transport routes for visitors and residents alike. It became something of a central transportation hub once the Moab Trails Alliance, a local non-profit dedicated to expanding cycling, received funding for a pedestrian bridge across the river to Arches.

Interpretive and wayfinding signage installed to help visitors find their way. Photo: National Park Service.

From park to hub

The question then became how to make the place inviting, and how to use it as a hub for people coming to Moab. After scoping and planning, the Moab Trails Alliance, led by its founder and executive director, applied for help from the National Park Service's Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program. The proposed project aimed to build a trail and transportation hub that would safely combine recreation and alternative transportation and reduce traffic congestion near Moab. It also meant revitalising Lions Park and creating an attractive transit hub linking land and water trails to encourage active transportation. The park became part of the North Moab Recreation Areas Alternative Transportation Project, as a "gateway" to Moab and to what Grand County offers.

The Alliance's director credited the Park Service with making it happen. The National Park Service project specialist was described as the team captain who knew how to guide the stakeholders. The specialist organised public meetings, worked with Utah State University on a conceptual design plan for the park's future use, and helped Arches National Park and its partners win two National Park Service grants focused on connecting parks to communities. The BLM specialist said that without the program it would have been very hard to bring the different interests and ideas together productively.

The county's economic development director described the situation before the project: no central hub or connection point for the trail networks that were developing, and no way for cyclists and pedestrians to get around other than dangerously along the freeways. The Alliance's director said that before the path, riding a bike from Moab across the pedestrian bridge meant taking your life into your hands.

The bridge that gives a safe crossing of the Colorado River and connects Lions Park to Arches National Park and other trails. Photo: National Park Service.

What it has now

Lions Park and the transit hub now offer parking, restrooms, a transit bus stop and interpretive information, plus a pedestrian bridge over the Colorado River and an underpass beneath the highway. Both give access to the surrounding trail network. The BLM specialist said a visitor needs to arrive, put their feet on the ground, use the bathroom and work out where they are, and that the results were far better than anyone imagined. A traveller who had come from Portland, Oregon, stopped because the hub on Route 191 looked inviting. Grand County and its partners plan to concentrate on upkeep of the park and the trail network. The Alliance's director said the park had been the most underused piece of real estate in the county and was now its main focal point, a beautiful entrance to the community.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Lions Park: Moab's Gateway to its Natural Wonders" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/lions-park-moab-s-gateway-to-its-natural-wonders.htm), public domain as a work of the U.S. government; the people quoted are named by role and paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.