If you ever had to describe Bloomington-Normal's best features to someone who's never been here, the Constitution Trail would certainly be near the top of the list. Which is interesting, because it almost didn’t happen. There was strong opposition to the creation of the trail in the mid-1980s. Supporters fought for the idea anyway – and won. As part of WGLT’s Welcome Home series focused on our newest neighbors, WGLT's Ryan Denham reports on what we can learn when a big idea faces big resistance.
By the mid-1980s, the railroad lines that cut through Bloomington-Normal were abandoned – leaving narrow strips of opportunity all over. Also around this time, there was increasing interest in physical fitness and exercise.
The Rails to Trails movement was starting to take shape, converting those old rail lines into trails for walking, jogging, biking, skating and commuting.
That movement helped spark an idea in Bloomington-Normal too, to create a linear park. Bloomington City Council member Hugh Atwood and Normal Town Council member Garrett Scott were the biggest political cheerleaders.
“This was new, and so we were kind of stepping out ahead of the times, just a little bit,” said Keith Rich, who was Bloomington's parks and recreation director at the time.
The idea was controversial, especially for those who lived along those old railroad lines.
“I think it was just having some public in your backyard. Even though the public may be 100 to 150 feet away, it still was an issue in people’s minds,” Rich said. “Although on the other hand, you could make the argument that the sidewalk is only 30 feet from their front door, but that didn’t make any difference. There were concerns. It was new.”
Would there be more crime? More peeping toms? How would it affect property values? There were a lot of unknowns.
“People thought it would be a scourge to the earth to have a trail behind their home,” said Doug Oehler, a charter member of the group Friends of the Constitution Trail, who spoke to WGLT in 2019.
Rich said they took it slowly. Lots of public input. Atwood went door to door.
“We involved the various stakeholders and tried to explain and share with them what other communities were doing, and what our opportunities are, and understanding the negatives and the positives. And, of course, in this case, the positives really were outweighing many of the negatives,” said Rich.
Oehler said there was meeting after meeting after meeting.
“And then really, on the part of both city councils, really just pushing forward it. Finally, we’re just gonna do it. And they did it,” he said.
Initially, the trail was just 4 miles long. It opened to the public May 6, 1989. How long did it take to win people over?
“Probably as soon as it opened. It was that quick,” Friends of the Constitution Trail president Patrick Dullard said in 2019. “It didn’t take very long. And you could even see historically editorials in the paper went from, ‘This might not be such a great idea’ and ‘Use all volunteers for it’ and things like that, to, ‘Here’s another extension. We should be going for it!’ It turned pretty quickly.”
Former Bloomington parks and rec director Keith Rich started taking pictures near the trail.
“Maybe they had a fence, and all of a sudden there was a gate in that fence,” Rich said. “The point is, people really began to accept it. It took a year or two before you could really see that.”
The trail expanded throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. What started as a 4-mile trail is now about 50 miles, crisscrossing the community. Normal is next planning to extend the trail west along Gregory Street to Maxwell Park.
“It’s the busiest park in both cities. By far," Oehler said. "And I think it represents more than just a trail. It’s a community activity. The amount of people that use it, the draw from people outside the community, the tourism and so on – has really boomed."
Depending on how long you’ve lived here, you've seen Bloomington and Normal city leaders get along, fight, cooperate, squabble, and back and forth again.
“I think it’s the best example of cooperation of government that we have," Dullard said. "Normal, Bloomington, McLean County – they all work together to improve the trail. It’s probably the one thing that is the easiest sign of cooperation. If we can cooperate on that, there’s probably other things we can cooperate on. I’d like to see them build on that.”
So the next time a big, bold, crazy idea emerges in Bloomington-Normal, and you've got supporters, and you've got opponents, and you've got people who are still making up their mind, keep in mind that not too long ago, one of those big, bold, crazy ideas became Constitution Trail.
