A master plan four years in the making will provide a framework for future development of Laramie’s parks, pathways and recreation areas during the next four decades.
The Parks and Recreation master plan, 463 pages long, has no set budget or specific projects, but offers detailed vision statements for the community.
“In the future, we’re certainly going to want to have parks, trails, everything we possibly can, for all citizens,” Councilor Joe Shumway said during the presentation of the master plan. “We don’t know when it’s going to happen or how it’s going to happen, but if we don’t have a dream, don’t have a vision, sometimes those things just go away and there’s never an opportunity to have the very best for our citizens.”
An ad-hoc committee of citizens put together the plan, saving the city the cost of hiring an outside consultant while gathering input from across the city community.
Parks and Recreation Director Paul Harrison said the vision statements found in the front of the plan, which guide the detailed breakdown of areas for improvement in the rest of the document, are the master plan’s most important contribution.
“The ad-hoc committee spent quite a bit of time developing these,” he said. “This is the foundation and backbone of the plan.”
One major focus of the plan was connecting parks and recreation areas across the city so that cyclists and pedestrians could travel between them with greater ease.
This could include better shared-use pathways between the UW campus and downtown and a better connection of the Greenbelt Trail, Laramie’s most prominent shared-use path to recreation areas across the railroad tracks.
The plan cuts up Laramie into 25 service areas for more detailed analysis.
UW main campus is divided between two, Ninth street through 15th Street falling into service area five and the dorms, fields and War Memorial Stadium falling into service area six.
The plan for service area five, which extends beyond campus west to First Street and north to Reynolds Street, calls for more neighborhood parks and more bike lanes.
Service area six, which extends east from 15th Street to 30th Street and also north to Reynolds Street, already has ample recreation areas thanks to the prominence of university fields and green spaces.
Still, the plan calls for an additional neighborhood park, in cooperation with the university, for the large student population that dominates service area six.
Both service areas call for the beautification of the Grand Avenue and Harney Street corridors.
