River Trail travail: After two decades, can Little Rock finally close the loop?

The Arkansas River Trail loop has long been lauded as an example of Central Arkansas’s forward-thinking commitment to tourism, sustainability and quality of life. But two decades after the trail opened to bikers, walkers and joggers, the “loop” part remains a misnomer.

While the project has been mostly finished for years, a treacherous gap still forces cyclists off the calm and traffic-free path and onto a narrow city sidewalk along Cantrell Road sandwiched between Episcopal Collegiate School and Dillard’s corporate headquarters. The four-lane road is one of the busiest surface streets in Little Rock, with 23,000 cars and trucks whizzing past on an average weekday. Negotiations, pressure campaigns, carrots and sticks have not been enough to close the deal, with officials from both Dil