Abandoned Railroad Bridges

Flagstaff Trailheads: Hard to say no to a good cause

Tom Boughner is an environmental code specialist for the Sustainability & Environment Management section of the Public Works Division for the City of Flagstaff. Try saying that fast three times. Or answering a worksite phone by repeating that job title followed by your name. And do it patiently for a fuming fellow citizen bent on making you catch fire, too. Sounds daunting to me. Yet, Tom and his fellow employees are expected to accomplish that challenge on a daily basis. And they do it, too!

I first met Tom at a Block Watch meeting when he worked for the Police Department. Block Watch folks are prone to be a bit on the somber side. I know that to be true because I'm one of them. But Officer Boughner always managed to lighten our load by the tenor of his slightly askew sense of humor.

It's difficult -- if not impossible -- to be morose around Tom. Give him a few minutes and he'll have you smiling. Outright laughter soon follows. The man is a walkaround good guy. A city treasure. And let me advise you: hard to refuse.

The Flagstaff downtown has several urban trail connections that need to be made if we're going to further ensure a safe passage for our many bicycle and pedestrian commuters. And I think those same connectors are necessary to encourage more of our visitors to walk our city center. If you believe tourists play a major role in our economic well being, then I'm sure you can agree making our downtown more friendly to those who want to walk is a wise priority.

One of my favorite downtown projects -- perhaps now abandoned -- is a bike/ped FUTS bridge over Milton alongside the railroad overpass. This would connect the proposed Walnut/Florence urban trail tunnel (west of Milton and under the tracks) to Colton Park and the FUTS headed east toward the Flagstaff Mall.

Remember what I said about the persuasive Mr. Boughner? A good number of volunteers used a Friday morning to help clean up an area that can only be described as a mess. It's a section of land west of the railroad bridge over Milton and north of the tracks. Look at a city map to see where it's located. Right in the midsection of Flagstaff across from Colton Park!

Heaps of trash, mounds of broken glass and discarded clothes filled the area. The trees were overgrown and the brush and weeds out of control. It was Tom who listened to the folks from Mogollon Engineering when they talked about the sad conditions behind their workplace. And it was also Tom who persuaded them to participate -- along with many other volunteers including himself -- in the cleanup.

JSH's Visual Slushpile: Abandoned Railroad Bridge

When I was a kid I lived in a very old farmhouse that had in its bathroom a slot to drop used razor blades into. "But where do they go?" I wondered.

I went down to the basement and found a hidden room, walled up. I found a small hole in the wall and with some work, I managed to gouge it much bigger, enough to shine a flashlight into and peer in.

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