Connected by Design
- "Connected by Design" originally appeared in the June 2025 "Outdoors" issue of COMO Magazine.
Columbia’s ever-growing trail system is more than just a scenic stroll — it’s a rolling, walking, wheeling web that shapes how the city moves, grooves, and grows.
Editor’s note:
The June 2025 feature story in COMO Magazine incorrectly reported that the thirty-mile trail loop around the city is about 85 percent complete. The correct number is 60 percent. The same story reported that bridges 9 and 10 on the MKT Trail, near the University of Missouri, were being replaced. However, Bridge 10 is being renovated, and Bridge 9 is being replaced. Additionally, an inadvertent editing deletion removed the term “volunteer project” in reference to the COMO Trails Association (COMOTA) and the Gans Creek Trail, as well as reference to Columbia Parks and Recreation’s ownership of a six-mile stretch of the 10.5-mile trail, which is set to open this fall. Finally, the MKT Trail celebrates its 40th birthday this year. An editing error changed the celebration anniversary to thirty-five years. To clarify, the first phase of the MKT Trail began in 1982, or forty-three years ago, but the trail wasn’t officially dedicated until 1985.
Columbia has long existed as a connecting point. An oasis of culture and community equidistant from St. Louis and Kansas City’s metropolitan bookends, the city enthusiastically greets I-70 travelers from either direction with a beverage and a bite to eat.
Its geographic centrality made it a compelling choice for state leaders when they established Missouri’s first public land-grant institution of higher education in 1839, which in time turned the town into a hub for education, innovation, and research. Centrality notwithstanding, though, Columbia wasn’t initially an easy place for students to get to. Those outside of horse-and-buggy range might take a steamboat to somewhere like Nashville (now Cooper’s Landing) and bump along a plank road into town. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that Columbia achieved direct rail service, and even then, it was via a spur line.
While laying track amid the hills and creek beds of southern Boone County can’t have been easy, there’s no denying it yielded scenic views. The late Darwin Hindman, former mayor of Columbia, must have thought as much in the 1980s when he persuaded then-Governor John Ashcroft to convert an unused section of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) rail line into what is now the 238.7-mile Katy Trail State Park. The son of a Mizzou physical education professor, Hindman is credited with the construction of nearly 100 miles of side trails, walking paths, and bike paths. He also obtained a $22 million federal grant under the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot Program to help Columbia develop a multimodal transportation system.
To further this mission, in 2013 the Columbia Parks & Recreation Department put forth an aspirational plan to complete a thirty-mile trail loop around the city, consisting of the MKT Trail, Hinkson Creek Trail, Bear Creek Trail, and Perche Creek Trail — of which Phase I, connecting the MKT Trail to Gillespie Bridge Road, was recently dedicated. Officials say the full city loop is about 60 percent complete.
“People are seeing the benefits of increased connectivity,” said Mike Burden, chief executive officer of Local Motion, a Columbia nonprofit dedicated to improving walking, biking, and transit solutions. “A lot of thought has gone into creating linkages to neighborhoods so that folks can walk, bike, or wheel from home to the trail and then use it to get groceries or go to work. We see the trail system as a part of daily commuting as much as for fitness and recreation.”
Burden and his colleagues at Local Motion conduct regular neighborhood audits to assess how safe it feels to bike or walk in a given area.
“I recently rode on Paris Road while it was busy, and I wouldn’t be comfortable having my kids with me in that situation,” Burden said. “I kept thinking how much better it will be riding on a developed trail.”
How COMO’s Trails Come to Be
The majority of trail development is paid for by the Columbia Parks Sales Tax, revenue used “solely for local parks for the city in order to purchase, improve and manage parks, trails and natural lands for water quality, wildlife, tree preservation, and recreation purposes,” according to the city’s website.
The city also leverages federal grants (such as the $250,000 allotment toward the Perche Creek Trailhead), private donations, and Missouri Department of Natural Resources funds. Projects currently underway include the replacement of bridge nine and the renovation of bridge 10 on the MKT Trail near the University of Missouri (to accommodate emergency vehicles), as well as the Cosmo Bike Park. The latter project will connect to the Rhett Walters Memorial Mountain Bike Trail, aka Rhett’s Run, and include an asphalt pump track, mountain bike skills course, and cyclocross event space, among other features.
Additional projects still in the conceptual phase include the Hinkson Creek Trail, connecting Clark Lane to Vandiver Drive, and the Colt Railroad Trail, connecting College Avenue to Brown Station Road. These are among the last remaining segments needed to complete the 30-mile loop.
The COMO Trails Association (COMOTA), a nonprofit group founded in 2018, partners with every surface-trail owner in Boone County, working year-round to help with trail design and maintenance. Its most recent volunteer project, the Gans Creek Recreation Area trail near the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Central Office, showcases 10.5 miles of trail — with a six-mile stretch belonging to Columbia Parks and Recreation — consisting of three loops and is set to open in fall 2025.
“We’re made up of hikers, bikers, trail runners, and people who just love the trails, volunteering to keep them safe and beautiful,” said Nate Smith, COMOTA president. “We even have a backcountry horse member now, and she rides horseback. For being such a young organization, we’ve done a lot for the trails.”
“I’ve found the Columbia trail system is a more natural trail than other city systems,” said William Green, a trail volunteer who has ridden in Memphis and Indianapolis, among other locations. “I enjoy keeping [the trails] clean, picking up litter. And I always carry my clippers with me in case I need to cut back any limbs.”
Where Trails Meet
It’s clear the volunteers’ efforts are paying off. Columbians love their trails, as evidenced by the parade of outdoor enthusiasts crunching crushed limestone under their sneakers and tires for annual events such as Bike, Walk & Wheel Week and Pedaler’s Jamboree, the bicycle and music festival.
The trail system is a boon for tourism, a selling point for corporate relocation, a hook for college recruitment, and the main reason why COMO regularly makes national lists of the most walkable and bikeable communities.
“Over the years, we get a lot of calls from apartment complexes, HOA groups, and residents who want to connect to the trail system,” said Janet Godon, a Columbia Parks & Recreation Department planner. “We have an additional goal of getting every resident in the city connected to a park and trail within a half mile of where they live.”
That approach clearly works for Dot and Brad Johnson, parents of 6-year-old James and 5-year-old Cameron, who maximize their family trail time thanks in part to Dot’s mother’s property that abuts the MKT Trail on Lathrop Road.
“We love to watch the seasons change on the trail — mayapples and trillium in the spring, a shaded walk in the summer, buckeyes and pawpaws in the fall,” Dot said. “With so many access points and trail types, it’s a pick-your-own adventure.”
Looping the Legacy
On May 1, representatives from trail advocacy groups including Local Motion, COMOTA, and Missourians for Responsible Transportation joined volunteers, civic leaders, and citizens for a ribbon cutting that officially opened the trail system’s latest spur at the handsome new bridge over Perche Creek.
Recumbent riders, hand cyclists, traditional cyclists, and hikers alike enjoyed refreshments and revelry about 1.25 miles west of Jay Dix Station. As the MKT Trail celebrates its 40th birthday in 2025, the ceremony commemorating Phase I of the Perche Creek Trail seemed to serve double duty.
The undeniable metaphor of the trail’s newest tributary connecting Columbia’s past to its present was made even more tangible by attendees Mayor Barbara Buffaloe — who handled ribbon-cutting honors — and former Columbia First Lady Axie Hindman. As Darwin’s widow smiled from the sun-dappled seating area, her late husband’s legacy echoed in the current mayor’s words.
“Columbia’s trails connect people — neighborhoods to places of enjoyment, entertainment, jobs,” Buffaloe said. “This is another step toward that connection so that [Columbians] have more options for getting around town and being engrossed in nature.”