Official off-road bike trails in southwest Arlington remain elusive after opposition from neighbors

For some off-road cyclists in and around south Arlington, the most reliable trails for a quick weekday ride do not officially exist.

The trails stem from city-sanctioned pathways in F.J. "Red" Kane Park , O.W. Fannin Natural Area and Rush Creek Linear Park . Both sanctioned and unsanctioned trails wind through the Fannin Farms neighborhood, whose residents relish close contact with animals like bobcats, coyotes and peacocks.

For off-road bikers like Paul Hakes, the area is also a convenient space when rush hour makes the distance from other off-road trails seem greater.

"It's a good 30, 35 minutes to get to River Legacy (Park), and then you ride for an hour and a half, then you drive back. So now you're gone for three hours," he said.

Fellow bikers in Fannin Farms showed Hakes the "spider trails" several years ago. Since then, he tries to spend 10 hours a month on trail maintenance, which can include clearing branches that could hit bikers, collecting trash and rerouting eroded trails.

"We made them so that you're not getting face slappers," Hakes said, referring to outlying tree branches. "You're not getting a tree down across it. You're not going to get hit by a branch."

Hakes and other cyclists have led multiple efforts to convince the city to recognize the mountain bike trails. Last year, he asked the city's parks and recreation board for E911 signs: emergency signs that could help first responders find callers' exact location.

"If somebody is back here by themselves, got hurt or lost, they couldn't be found," he said.

However, bikers have not convinced residents in Fannin Farms, some of whom fought against the cyclists' latest request. After soliciting community feedback, city officials have decided to put a different kind of sign in the park, one that warns unauthorized trail users to do so at their own risk.

Residents including Luke Anderson said bikers should not have asked for permission and recognition after illegally cutting down trees. Since 2020, he said, bikers have cut a trail that is yards away from his fence.

"If you buy your house next to an airport and then complain about the airport noise, that's not genuine ... that's not an argument in good faith. But when you have something and then people come and put things in that's unauthorized, that's not OK," he said.

Hakes said he does not approve of other cyclists who have installed ramps and cut new trails, and that he has merely maintained already existing routes. He argued that recognition of the trails and a partnership with a bicycling organization would allow for more consistent maintenance and redirection from fence lines.

"We're pretty close, but we're forced to do that," Hakes said. "We actually wanted to move it over, but we'd have to put a bridge in, and the city wouldn't allow us to put a bridge in because it's not an official trail."

Parks officials hear both sides

When Hakes and others first broached the issue in 2019, they asked for trail authorization. When he returned in 2023 to ask for emergency signs, Parks Director James Orloski decided to revive the authorization discussion.

Orloski said the city could have put up signs without authorizing the trail. However, to do so might imply the city maintains and recognizes the trails.

"If we go through and we put signage, that would potentially suggest that this is a sanctioned use and a sanctioned area with improved trails," he said.

After a public meeting – and emails that KERA News obtained through a records request – parks and recreation staff told city council in August the community remained divided over trail formalization.

A survey reported by Fannin Farms Homeowners Association Secretary Mark Whiting returned 18 residents in favor of trail formalization and 61 opposed.

Whiting outlined the issues neighbors reported in comments, including speeding cyclists, danger to pedestrians or pets and families with young children, to city council during an Aug. 27 meeting.

"Generally the problem in the neighborhood is that it's a very narrow area. It's very difficult to have the parking, to have the infrastructure and to be able to do all of this," he said.

Whiting did not respond to interview requests.

Anderson, who wrote an email of his own, said he would be more open to discussions with cyclists if they had not worked on trails without the city's blessing in the first place. He recognizes the parks are city property – and loves that people use the trails – but said neither the park nor neighborhood were designed for off-road biking.

"There are areas that you could do this without disturbing residents, without disturbing people and nature. You could do this the right way. But I do not want to reward bad behavior," Anderson said.

Arlington City Council in August shelved the discussion.

Raul Gonzalez, the council member who represents southwest Arlington, said in addition to concerns about the trails' implication for privacy and safety, he also worried the trails would impact traffic from out of the neighborhood.

"We really don't want any advertising whatsoever to bring people to this park because it wasn't made for that. It's a small little, you know, linear park. It's not like River Legacy," Gonzalez said.

Trail use

Off-road bikers represent a niche within the greater biking community, Hakes said. He argues the size and low difficulty of trails will never make F.J. "Red" Kane Park or surrounding natural areas a destination.

"I feel like they are taking the HOA as a higher percentage than the average citizen in the neighborhood," he said. "People across the road, if they don't mountain bike, they don't know this even exists. And if they don't have kids, they don't even know this park exists."

For Cole Camp with the Texas Interscholastic Mountain Bike League , the trails are a place to bring students for practice. The trail's quick-draining soil makes it available sooner than other trails.

Camp said part of teaching students about mountain biking is to teach them to be good stewards.

"We want to make sure that we're developing this and safe in very manageable ways that agree with that, agree with the environment without and without harming the environment," he said.

Asked about bikers' stewardship along unauthorized trails, Orloski declined to comment. But he said he encourages people to pick up trash and keep natural spaces clean.

"I respect anybody that takes it upon themselves to help be a good steward of public spaces. But what I would say is I don't want people cutting down trees. I don't want people trimming trees," he said.