Upper Valley Residents Push For Park Instead Of Thoroughfare

It’s just a dirt road with a few benches, trees and a walking trail in an Upper Valley neighborhood.

But some wanted to extend River Bend Drive through a neighborhood to allow parts of the area easier access to main roads such as Sunland Park and Doniphan Drive.

The neighbors say that’s something they do not want to happen.

“We discovered that the city was going to put a road through here. Their initial traffic projections were that 20,000-30,000 vehicles of industrial type traffic and we just decided that that was going to kill not only our neighborhood but the whole upper valley,” said Susan Martinez, temporary president of the Zach White Neighborhood Association.

Back in 2005, neighbors started taking steps to turn the area into a park, effectively halting plans to extend the road.

As it turns out, even after getting funding and having the trail and landscaping installed… The city still didn’t recognize the area as a park.

“We thought we had a park in 2010 and just recently we discovered that no, it’s just a non-vehicular road, still not a park. So we are going to get it dedicated as a park,” said chair of the committee for the completion of the park Gene Karam.

After getting the park dedicated and officially recognized by the city of El Paso, neighbors are hoping to add even more attractions to benefit local residents even more.

“We have some neighbors that have small children and they want swing sets to go in, some sort of a playground to go in. People want exercise stations to go in. So very definitely this would be very conducive to all of us,” said Martinez.

Until then, area residents are working closely with city officials to make sure they’re quite little neighborhood stays that way.