About a decade ago, an effort got underway to essentially privilege a few wealthy landowners at the expense of the general public. Limited access to recreation on the west side of Bend has been one of the results.
Bend Park and Recreation District, in 2012, proposed in its bond package to build a pedestrian bridge over the Deschutes River to connect the southern end of town with the area around Rimrock Trailhead, also known as Good Dog. But when a small group of property owners near the river got wind of it, they mounted a multi-pronged campaign to stop the bridge. They cited environmental concerns, but it was obvious then that their real concern was that, suddenly, a lot more people would be using “their” part of the river. In 2017, they enlisted the help of then-Rep. Gene Whisnant, who added language to a bill in the state legislature that would have blocked the bridge. That legislation never passed, but with that and some other efforts, the wind went out of the sails for the project.
Over the past year or so, however, talks about the bridge have been reignited. A group calling itself Connect Bend formed to advocate for the project, providing a raft of information about the funding mechanisms, the parameters for building on a portion of Wild and Scenic River and more.
Bend Park and Recreation District has also been doing its own fact-finding. At a January board meeting, BPRD discussed its recent Community Needs Assessment, which found that 71% of the 900 households that participated supported the project. That’s an even bigger public show of support than the 2012 bond measure, where voters supported funding BPRD’s projects — explicitly listing the bridge among them — with 51.7% of the vote.
A bridge over this section of the Deschutes has a number of benefits, which have only come into more acute focus as Bend’s population grows. Among them: traffic impacts.
As Connect Bend points out via maps on its website, someone traveling from the south side of Bend to Good Dog — a popular place to access the river and let Bend’s canines romp off leash — requires a car trip of over 17 miles. That trip adds to traffic in the busy Deschutes River corridor around Reed Market Road, and also adds more cars to the steady stream of traffic on Century Drive. Cyclists, walkers, runners and other recreationalists who currently use other parts of the Century corridor would also benefit from a shorter, more direct commute to Bend’s west-side playground.
It is also unsettling to anyone living on the west side of the river just how few options they have for fleeing a wildfire, beyond going all the way into Bend via Century Drive. In 2019, the City of Bend’s Transportation Plan 2040 Project List included language proposing a study of a southern bridge crossing connecting southern Bend to Century Drive. The City does not have a southern bridge crossing in its current five-year plan. That, more than a pedestrian bridge, would do a lot for wildfire evacuation efforts, and both options would add some peace of mind.
At its Feb. 18 meeting, the Bend Park and Recreation District board voted unanimously to move forward on the bridge project. The move is only an effort to explore the feasibility of getting the project done and will take some time to move through the bureaucracy.
Given that the last time this issue of a pedestrian bridge heated up, a very small group of NIMBYs succeeded in stymying the effort for over a decade, and, given the overwhelming amount of support indicated in the Community Needs Assessment, the public should continue to support BPRD’s efforts to see this bridge move forward.
This article appears in The Source Weekly March 13, 2025.
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This bridge would certainly reduce vehicular miles driven, improve equity of access to public lands and fulfil a promise to the greater Bend community.
By adding a footbridge? Get real…