Statement on Bike Trail at Gans Creek Recreation Area

by Allison Vaughn

The Parks and Recreation Department has designed a network of bike paths at Gans Creek Recreation Area. One is in an ecologically sensitive area next to Gans Creek and Rock Bridge Memorial State Park’s Gans Creek Wild Area, a designated area that does not allow bicycles. CAS and the Sierra Club have hopes that Parks and Recreation will designate this sensitive area as a Nature Area and reroute the bike path through a different area.

Gans Creek Recreation Area Fact Sheet

November 2025

Endorsed by Mid-Missouri Chapter of Sierra Club, Columbia Audubon Society, Friends of Rock Bridge State Park, and Missouri Coalition for the Environment

 

We propose to designate Gans Creek Nature Preserve (about 140 acres) within Gans Creek Recreation Area (about 320 acres).  Recreational development would focus on uses that are compatible with the high ecological significance and sensitive natural features in this area and improve the core habitat connectivity with Gans Creek Wild Area to the west.  Compatible recreational development would include low-impact footpaths, interpretive displays, and opportunities to participate in habitat restoration, and would exclude bike trails.

 

  1. Gans Creek Recreation Area shares a common border with Gans Creek Wild Area within Rock Bridge Memorial State Park. These public lands together form an important, core natural habitat that has been recognized by national and statewide organizations.  No other City Park land is so ecologically important based on connectivity and landscape context.
    1. The area is at the northeast edge of an Important Bird Area designated by the American Bird Conservancy and The National Audubon Society.
    2. The area is within a Conservation Opportunity Area designated by Missouri Department of Conservation.
    3. Gans Creek is designated an Outstanding State Resource Water by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources immediately downstream within Gans Creek Wild Area.
  2. The area contains natural features, including the creek, karst topography (cave and sinkholes), highly erodible soils, and steep slopes that are recognized as sensitive to development and disturbance by the City’s Natural Resource Inventory (2023) and Columbia Imagined (2013).
  3. City master plans for Gans Creek Recreation Area in 2010 and 2018 included a 87.5-acre natural preservation area along Gans Creek and adjacent steep slopes, but these plans were ignored by the 2024 development plan.
  4. The Columbia Climate Action and Adaptation Plan specifies action to “Manage publicly-owned natural areas to enhance and maintain diverse native communities.”
  5. Despite the area’s natural ecological significance and highly sensitive features, and in opposition to the City’s own 2010 and 2018 park development plans and the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, the City proposed a high density of mountain bike trails for development. Bike trails north of Gans Creek were approved for development in late 2024.  A trail south of Gans Creek was put on hold by the City Council due to advocacy of environmental groups.  That trail originally crossed Gans Creek, had switchbacks that crossed a steep upland drainage 4 times, and consisted of high density in sensitive uplands with karst features and highly erodible soils.
  6. Mountain bike trail construction and use is inherently more destructive to the environment compared to nature trail development, causing removal of native vegetation and increased levels of soil erosion and sedimentation of Gans Creek. These results have already been witnessed during construction of the first bike trail at Gans Creek Recreation Area.
  7. Increased disturbance from a mountain bike trail will be exacerbated by climate change, which will cause more frequent high intensity rainfall events and flooding. Increased erosion would damage Gans Creek, both within Gans Creek Recreation Area and segments downstream.
  8. Development of mountain bike trails would effectively exclude other recreational users who favor a nature trail system due to competition between mountain bikers and hikers as has occurred in other communities with dual purpose trails.
  9. Mountain bike trails adjacent to Gans Creek Wild Area would risk bikes trespassing onto that property, where biking is not permitted. Any trespass would degrade the experience of users of Gans Creek Wild Area.

 

Proposed specially designated Gans Creek Nature Preserve (about 140 acres) with Gans Creek Recreation Area.