Truckee Springs Update: All About the Legacy Trail
As we’ve rolled out our campaign to protect the Wild Side of Downtown - Truckee Springs - we’ve talked a lot about the Truckee River Legacy Trail, and how important this project is to this paved path.
The Truckee River Legacy Trail below Glenshire.
But if you don’t know a lot about the Truckee River Legacy Trail, it may not sound that important. The story of the Legacy Trail goes back to a group of local Rotarians who wanted a 100-year legacy project for our region, and for the Truckee River in particular. They chose a trail paralleling the river to give the public access to the river, to grow their appreciation of the river as part of our town, and to hopefully instill some ownership and caring for the river by all those who enjoy it.
They formed Our Truckee River Legacy Foundation, and enlisted the help of nonprofits and government agencies - along with plenty of volunteers, to start cutting trail along the south side of the river. Today the trail is managed by the town, reaching from Glenshire in the east all the way to the Truckee River Regional Park, just east of Truckee Springs - all class 1 paved trail accessible to a wide range of users for much of the year.
The plan has been to extend all the way west to Donner Lake, spanning the eastern-most and western-most neighborhoods of our town, with spur trails along the way connecting to other neighborhoods and areas like Martis Valley, Sierra Meadows, Prosser and Tahoe Donner.
Standing in the trail’s way, however, has been a 26-acre piece of property on the river’s bank right in downtown Truckee - with uncertain plans and numerous development proposals over the years making an alignment for the trail’s middle section - it’s golden spike - hard to plan for.
That brings us to last year, when the Land Trust put a down payment on those 26 acres, calling it Truckee Springs, and began fundraising $10 million to buy the property, build trails, a pedestrian bridge to downtown, and more. This opens the door to a trail, unencumbered by development, that can follow the river through open space just a stone’s throw from the town’s vibrant commercial core.
To our west, Teichert is already building the Donner Lake connection piece through their Planned Community 1 project.
The trail will serve as the backbone for a multi-use trail network separated from roads and traffic for non-motorized commuting and recreation, critical to the community’s long-term goals of alternative transportation and reduced reliance on cars.
So there you have it - we believe the Legacy Trail will be a huge asset to our community when complete, and we need your help to make the missing link connect. As for the folks that started the Legacy Trail - the Foundation has committed all of its remaining funds to Truckee Springs to help there vision come to completion.