Leaders launch effort to connect trails in Las Vegas area

Kyle Hansen

Alan O’Neil, left, the executive director of the Outside Las Vegas Foundation, walks through a banner to symbolically open the new “Neon to Nature” trails at a National Trails Day event at the Henderson Pavilion. Behind O’Neil is Lake Mead National Recreation Area Superintendent Bill Dickinson.

By Kyle Hansen (contact)

Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 | 5:38 p.m.

A diverse group of local political leaders gathered in Henderson on Saturday to launch a new regional trail system promotion on National Trails Day.

The campaign, called Neon to Nature, seeks to unify what has been a growing, but disjointed, group of trails in the Las Vegas area.

Two years ago, the Outside Las Vegas Foundation called an open space and trails summit, and was able to get 14 government organizations to sign a letter of intent to work on a regional trail system, foundation executive director Alan O’Neill said.

That led to the creation of the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, which decided the first thing needed was a brand to unify the trails in the area, chairwoman Johanna Murphy said.

“We were very much aware of how many residents in everybody’s jurisdiction don’t even realize where the trails are,” she said.

The work group also has helped local municipalities work together in planning and building trails so they eventually will interconnect, Murphy said.

“We each have short segments of trails and we want to link that up,” said Murphy, who works for North Las Vegas. “We’re trying to link all the trails together.”

It was also important to have the federal agencies involved that have land in Southern Nevada, she said.

“That was a huge deal for us to be able to partner with the federal agencies and to continue that theme and make sure our trails do connect and you can go from the center of town out into the middle of Red Rock eventually on one trail,” she said.

The Neon to Nature brand plays on both of Las Vegas’ attractions of casinos and outdoor recreation, local officials said at the event.

“We thought that it was important to make the point that as important as the neon is, the Strip and such, what we have outside in nature is equally important,” O’Neil said. “We want to emphasize both, you can go from the neon to nature.”

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she is more neon than nature.

“I’m just not an outside kind of gal,” she said. “But I do know that you’d have to be a fool and the most insensitive human being on the planet not to be overwhelmed by what Mother Nature has given us. Some of the most breathtaking nature that the world has ever seen is right here in our backyard.”

Part of the Neon to Nature campaign is a new Web site hosted by the Regional Transportation Commission that will include information about all the trails in the valley.

And the Southern Nevada Health District is joining the campaign as part of its effort to get people to go outside and get more exercise.