The Bend Park & Recreation District is taking a closer look where to build a long-desired — and disputed — footbridge spanning the Deschutes River near the southeast edge of Bend.
But now that the district is halfway done with a two-year effort to identify and analyze possible locations, it’s becoming clearer that the best spot might be one the district already picked out more than 10 years ago before pumping the brakes on the project.
District staff and transportation consultant Kittelson and Associates presented to the district’s Board of Directors Oct. 6 on the ongoing Deschutes River Trail South Study. That’s the renewed effort to site a footbridge proponents say would connect growing neighborhoods in southwest Bend to miles of public forest across the river — one plagued by environmental regulations, landowner pushback and challenging topography.
“The intent of this project is to inform future decision making, not to decide on a course of action,” said Henry Stroud, the park district’s lead planner on the project.
“This is a fact-finding mission,” he added.
Board members on Tuesday approved the study’s recommendation to narrow analysis to two possible bridge locations, one just outside Bend’s urban growth boundary and one just inside the boundary in southwest Bend, plus a third alternative to make an existing footbridge and surrounding trails more accessible instead of building a brand-new one.
Next, staff and consultants will weigh those alternatives and create feasibility studies. The district is spending $300,000 to complete the study, which should be done by April 2027.
The district began planning work for a new footbridge in the same area in 2012 after voters approved a bond to improve trail connections, but shelved the project in 2019 amid public conflict.
Still, it’s not clear the footbridge project has a clear path to overcoming hurdles that have stymied it for decades.
That includes federal and state scenic waterway protections in the Upper Deschutes River that prohibit or strongly discourage bridge development. The district could avoid the scenic waterway by building a footbridge farther downstream closer to town, between an existing southern footbridge and the Deschutes National Forest. But the study suggested ruling that out due to property constraints, issues with steep topography and reduced connectivity.
Parks Board Member Nathan Hovekamp said building a bridge in that area to avoid scenic waterway designations was an “intriguing possibility,” and suggested the district not rule it out quite yet.
“Otherwise I just see our options diminishing to a bridge or no bridge, not ‘here’s a couple different bridge locations. I think that’s pretty limited,” Hovecamp said.
Stroud said staff could take another look at the area and said it would be a “small expense” within the scope of the project, as other board members expressed concerns about increasing costs of the study.
In 2014, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department shot down the Bend park district’s request to amend wild and scenic rules to allow bicycle and pedestrian bridges. But the state department also pointed out that there’s a public process for certain projects to be exempted from the scenic rules — as long as a willing landowner applies for it. Private landowners near the proposed site aren’t in support of the bridge, Stroud said.
The details of regulatory approval is something the next phases of the study can drill into, Stroud said.
“As much as we would like all these permits to be black and white, they’re not,” Stroud said.
Hovekamp called the ambiguity in the environmental regulations “the most confusing thing” about the footbridge project, while Stroud called it “the divisive issue” on the project.
To help guide the study, the park district assembled a new 13-member stakeholder advisory committee of groups who have long stood on opposing sides of one of the most hotly contested public projects in the region. It includes Oregon Wild, an environmental group that’s warned the footbridge could erode fundamental protections for natural areas, and Connect Bend, a nonprofit formed to support the bridge. That group has called out Oregon Wild for what it calls an “irresponsible campaign” against the bridge.
Tuesday’s meeting saw about an hour and a half of public comments both for and against the bridge. More than 200 people attended a public open house event in April, and hundreds more have written or responded to surveys.
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