A temporary plan for shuttle services for mountain bikers utilizing trails around Lake Leatherwood is in place for the remainder of the year after a contract was terminated with an outside vendor.
At its regular monthly meeting held Oct. 15, the Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation Commission approved dealing directly with a subcontractor to handle the services and go back to a wristband system that was used in the past.
“We had to cancel the shuttle contract that we had through this year with the current vendor,” parks director Sam Dudley told the commission. “Payments were just not arriving on time, and I was tired of dealing with it, to be honest. I just couldn’t keep having it go through the spin cycle over and over again.
“…It’s definitely within the contract that if the payments were late, there’s a stipulation that says it’s an automatic termination. So, we were well within our bounds to do that.”
With the contract ending during one the of the busiest times of the year for trail users, it was important to have something else in place immediately, Dudley told commissioners.
“We don’t obviously want to just halt all the shuttle operations, especially in the middle of October when it’s the busiest time of the year for mountain biking,” he said. “… We want to make sure that for the people who do come, at least there’s the option there for a short-term fix. The person who had the contract had a subcontractor they were working through and I would like to propose that we simply allow that person to operate through the rest of the calendar year … and just kind of rearrange the payment structure and how that goes just so we can at least recoup some of the money that we kind of lost out on.” The approved plan will include the parks department selling the subcontractor wristbands for $6 each for each bike rider to wear.
“So, just to be clear, they buy the wristbands from us and then they charge for their shuttle service, which basically includes their wristband cost,” commission chair Mark Ingram said of the subcontractor. “They’re paying upfront for the wristbands they’re buying for the day.”
There will be no official contract in place for the remainder of the year, Dudley said, adding that the subcontractor would just be paying the parks department $6 per wristband.
“They’ll come and buy like 100 at a time to make sure they have enough to last for a couple of weeks,” Dudley said. “…This is a very short-term arrangement in my eyes. I’m just trying to get through the year and hopefully we can make a little bit of money from that. So yeah, it’s not ideal, but I’m trying to make some lemonade…” Any individual providing the service must have a business license, Dudley reminded commissioners.
“… People who meet the requirements or have the facilities to provide the shuttle, I mean, it is short-term,” Dudley said of the new arrangement.
FUTURE SHUTTLE PLANS
Dudley also shared his vision for the bike trails shuttle system moving forward in 2025, including hiring a new full-time employee, purchasing a shuttle and moving the services back as a parks department operation.
The department has two mountain bike trailers but sold its two shuttles in early 2023 when vendors started handling the operations, Dudley said.
“We have an asset and here’s my proposal for getting the most out of it in terms of providing a product to park users as well as providing us with some income that we can use for enhancing the downhill trails, or enhancing any park entity,” Dudley said regarding the proposal for the Lake Leatherwood bike park, which includes seven downhill trails and was built in 2018 thanks to funding from the Walton Family Foundation through the Trailblazers organization. “… We’ve had a variety of shuttle services that we’ve provided in the past, which is partly why it’s been so confusing for park users. We’ve had park-owned shuttles that we would operate on certain days and then we’d also have private shuttle operators. It got pretty messy at times. We do feel like the exclusive shuttle contract that we had was very beneficial in that it got rid of all that, but obviously that didn’t work out for other reasons.”
Dudley said he’s always felt the shuttle system needs to be “all private or all public.”
“We tried the private thing,” he said. “It seemed like a pretty kind of a no-brainer at the time because the operator actually bought the motel at the top of the hill, so we thought it was perfect, that they’re going to create that bike park experience that we, as a parks department, kind of struggled to provide because we’re parks and we’re limited by budget and also what we can do in terms of selling certain items, or discounts for locals and stuff like that.
“But, since that didn’t work out, I think we should go all in with public shuttles and just own it and operate it as we feel we need to.”
Pricing for riders has varied between $25 to $40 throughout the existence of the downhill trails, Dudley said.
“I think when they first opened, they actually gave them out for free as part of the incentive from the Waltons to get people to come ride them,” he said. “Obviously, that was not going to be permanent because you’ve got to make some money on it.”
Dudley’s idea would include adding a shuttle manager position that would handle the shuttle reservations, marketing the trails, driving the shuttle and assisting with trail maintenance as their main duties, along with purchasing a shuttle.
“For most of the year, we’d only need one [shuttle], but we do have two trailers,” he said. “I don’t think it would be worth buying a second shuttle unless we really start seeing a big increase that would warrant the purchase of one. I say we start off with one and then we can work with that contractor to come over and we can just pay them on days when we need them to come … just kind of relieve the pressure.”
Dudley estimates the cost of a shuttle would be “$15,000 to $30,00, depending on the condition.”
“It needs to be able to haul at least 14 people,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re only taking six or seven people up at a time and you’re creating a bottleneck down there at the bottom.”
Overall, taking the shuttle system back inhouse would cost approximately $100,000 for the first year, including the salary of the new position, maintenance costs and insurance, Dudley said, admitting he was a bit liberal with projections, always wanting to “undershoot the bar.”
First-year gross income projections for the shuttle system are around $80,000, he added.
The possibility of taking over the shuttle system will take more discussions, but commissioners agreed that they liked the initial ideas.
“There’s more homework to be done, but this looks great,” commissioner Ruth Hager said.
The commission plans to discuss the project further at its next regular meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 19.
BUSY LAKE LEATHERWOOD In his director’s report, Dudley told commissioners that Lake Leatherwood Park has been busy with many events in recent weeks, including hosting the Arkansas Enduro Series, a fall jamboree for the soccer club and a fishing derby.
“The fishing derby was a good event and it was really cool working with Arkansas Game and Fish, as well as Eureka Springs High School. [Skills and trade students] helped out with building some artificial fish habitats in the lake, which are really cool.”
People have commented that the park has been as busy as it’s ever been, Dudley said.
“We’re bringing more people down there,” he said. “I don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re doing it. We’re doing it well, whatever it is we’re doing. I think it’s just a lot of good positive energy and having a good team down there and the numbers are proving all that. The numbers are like way up from what we expected, what we budgeted.”
In other updates, Dudley told commissioners that all 12 of the newly refurbished benches have been claimed for personal plaques at Basin Spring Park.
“It turned out well,” he said of the project. “I was a little nervous at first because like the fish at Leatherwood, people weren’t exactly biting. But, they all got accounted for and a big thank you to everyone who did that.”
Dudley also said Main Street Eureka Springs has agreed to fund a “very significant portion” of the installation of a handrail at the Crystal Terrace staircase.
“We’re going to get a handrail put up there, a nice one, too,” he said. “Sort of like the one we have at Basin Park.”
Dudley also complimented the parks staff for a “little flash of fall decorations” around the city.
“The gardens around town just continue to look amazing in my opinion,” he said. “…It added like a really cool touch for fall.”
— Parks and Recreation Director Sam Dudley
