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Vandalism at Richland Creek Greenway Trail

Earlier tonight, I got out for a ride for the first time for more than a week -- it's amazing how administrative work on a certain bicycle ride can take up your time -- and I decided to do a simple ride on the Richland Creek Greenway and MetroLink trails in Belleville. The trip out to SWIC went without a hitch.

The trip back was a different story.

On the hill leading down from the MetroLink Trail to North End Park, someone had thrown rocks across the width of the trail. Fortunately, I saw the rocks and was able to stop in time to avoid them. Had I not seen them, I probably would have suffered a fall at a fairly fast rate of speed. I kicked most of the rocks off the trail and picked up the bigger ones that could potentially have caused a serious accident.

The rocks were not there when I climbed the hill several minutes earlier.

Sadly, this is not the first time I've seen that rocks were thrown on the trail. A couple of weeks ago, someone had thrown big rocks onto the trail at the Illinois Route 159 bridge over the trail and Richland Creek. I took the time to remove those rocks from the trail as well because of the potential for a serious accident.

It's a shame that stupid vandals think it's cute to throw rocks on a bike trail. I'm sure these morons have no idea how much damage their stunts can do to a bicycle or a person. It's a serious enough problem that the Belleville Department of Parks and Recreation might have to spend some time and money to remove rocks from the area near the trail at North End Park trail and install chicken wire over the rocks at the Route 159 bridge to curb the vandalism.

Roger 0 comments 11:12 PM