Springfield Parks, Greenways, and Outdoor Spaces

       

3/21/16
This evening we visited three "green spaces" but only one of them is on the list of Springfield-Greene County Park facilities. The additional two are other public accessible paths.

#11. Ward Branch Linear Park
This trail is referred to as Ward Branch Greenway on the Ozark Greenways site but as the Ward Branch Linear Park on the Springfield-Greene County Parks site. This trail is in three disconnected sections and runs along Ward Branch Creek. The section we walked is not shown on the Springfield-Greene County Parks facility map but is on the Ozarks Greenways trails map and described on their website. It is also noted that there are plans to eventually connect these sections. We started at Bradford Pkwy and Independence St. and walked out and back the approximately 1 mile section which ended at Monastery St. and  Roanoke Ave. near Twin Oaks Country Club. This isn't a particularly interesting walk with views primarily of James River Freeway, the backside of Cox South facilities and a frequently concreted over Ward Branch Creek. The trail is entirely paved and has a few areas of incline/decline. There had been recent flooding and there was a lot of trash/debris plastered on/through the railings and they were even broken in a couple of places but the path was mostly clear. There are no signs identifying this trail but there was signage stating this was a "trail" and a couple of others indicating a hiking/biking trail. We saw three other groups of walkers tonight. Including the walk around Burrell Park Lake we spent 53 minutes and walked 2.05 miles.  I have walked around the lake and about half of this section of Ward Branch trail before with some coworkers but Charlie had never been here.

Burrell Park Lake Path
This is not a city park but is a path around Burrell Park Lake on Bradbury Pkwy. behind Cox's Hulston Cancer Center. This a completely paved path that runs around a pretty urban "lake" with concrete benches and picnic tables with walkways/steps leading to it from adjoining office buildings.  It was beautiful tonight with many blooming trees, a pretty willow tree and geese on the lake. There were a few other people walking the path and taking photos. We parked at the Hulston Cancer Center back parking lot. After walking around the lake, we walked a half a block over to the Ward Branch Trail just past Independence St. on Bradbury Pkwy. to combine these two walks.

Twin Oaks Park
This park is on the grounds of Springfield City Utilities Twin Oaks Substation on Monastery St. just south of James River Freeway. It is a City Utilities park, not a Springfield-Greene County Park. I did not know this was here but Charlie knew about it although he had never walked the path. Two sections of the Ward Branch Greenway Trail/Ward Branch Linear Park start near here although they are not actually connected. There is a paved path that meanders through the substation grounds and runs close to Twin Oaks Golf Course on one side and a residential area on the other. It was a nice walk but not particularly spectacular. There are four picnic tables with grills and a swing set with 2 sling swings and two toddler swings. There were several parking spaces. We passed one person walking his dog and there were two boys swinging. We spent 14 minutes and walked 0.6 miles.

So just one more "official" park facility marked off the list but visited a couple of nearby interesting green spaces leaving 91 Springfield-Greene(Missouri) Park facilities to visit. We spent about 1 1/4 hours today.