Tranquility Park is home to 10 miles of singletrack on Omaha, Nebraska’s westside. During peak seasons, it draws 1,500 visitors per day, including hundreds of student athletes.
Unfortunately, about two-thirds of the trails have been closed for the next two years. The closure has left NICA teams and other locals looking for a new place to ride. It has also caused some tension with the local trail advocacy organization.
Omaha’s oldest trail system
Tranquility Park is Omaha’s oldest mountain bike trail system. The trails themselves date back to the early 2000s and were built entirely by volunteers. “It’s well-loved by the city,” Jason Brummels told us. “Folks don’t want to lose those trails.”
Brummels is the Executive Director of Trails Have Our Respect (THOR), which was established in the mid-90s by IMBA’s current CEO, Kent McNeill. The organization manages over 100 miles of trails in Nebraska and Western Iowa, including 25 parks with established trail systems, such as Tranquility.
THOR is taking on its most significant role at Tranquility Park yet. The trail organization is pushing forward with plans to redesign over half of the current mileage at Tranquility. While you might expect general excitement about new trails, many riders in the Omaha area have expressed frustration with the developments at Tranquility.
Local news reports that the Tranquility Park trails have been closed to riders while the city works on the park’s soccer fields, and they aren’t expected to reopen until July 2027. THOR’s partnership with the city has brought some criticism to the trail advocacy group. A two-year hiatus from riding some of Omaha’s favorite singletrack in favor of soccer fields hardly seems like “advocacy” to some.
Tranquility’s closure impacts several NICA and DEVO teams
Those 1,500 daily visitors include more than a hundred regulars who depend on Tranquility for consistent riding. Of the 20 or so NICA teams in the Omaha area, four regularly practice at Tranquility Park. Along with NICA, many DEVO teams also use Tranquility’s trail system.
The most significant issue many NICA and DEVO teams face is the lack of nearby trail options. “The draw to Tranquility is that it is pretty centrally located in Omaha. All of the other THOR trails [are on the east side of] Omaha — approximately 30 minutes or more drive time,” Susan Reff told us.
Reff has coached a NICA team for four years that practices at Tranquility Park twice a week. She is also the founder of the Nebraska DEVO program. Reff’s DEVO kids use the park once a week. Between the two teams, approximately 124 riders will need to find a new trail system to practice.
Ryan Moseley, Head Coach for the Millard West NICA team, shared Reff’s sentiment. Moseley said he typically has 20-30 kids on his team. “My students drive about 15 minutes to get to Tranquility Park for practice,” Moseley shared. “It is the best venue for our teams, because with 10 miles out there, we are able to spread out and, for the most part, stay out of each other’s way.”
Moseley explained that on a given practice night, there might be four or five NICA teams at Tranquility. This often means over 100 kids and sometimes over 40 coaches. Like Reff, Moseley said most of the kids on his team will need to drive 30 or 40 minutes to get to a comparable trail system.
This problem isn’t lost on THOR or Brummels. He shared that he spoke to a sophomore NICA athlete at a recent open house, who reminded him that Tranquility’s closure wasn’t just for “two years.” For that young athlete, two years was the remainder of his high school race career.
“That does suck, you know, that does hurt,” Brummels said. While he recognizes that they can’t replace the competition aspect, Brummels pointed out that athletes will be able to ride a newly developed Tranquility Park. In traditional sports, such as soccer, most won’t participate after high school.
For some, that isn’t enough. “They aren’t just closing the trail due to construction nearby,” Reff said. “We are losing the existing trail in favor of soccer fields.”
But, as we found out, soccer fields may not be the entire story.
Soccer fields or sewer pipes?
Much of the current reporting on the Tranquility Park closure cites soccer field improvement as the culprit. According to those reports, the city will be using dirt from the trail system to level the fields and help prevent flooding.
Brummels confirmed that the fields were being redone, with artificial turf installed for year-round use. He also told us there is space for four more fields, which would make Tranquility Park the largest soccer facility of its kind in the region. But the soccer fields aren’t the only project happening at Tranquility Park.
“[Tranquility] is getting a lot of investment, including some major sanitary sewer infrastructure that has to get buried under the park,” Brummels told us. “Even if the soccer fields weren’t being rebuilt, they have to bury a 60-inch sanitary sewer line along the creek that runs through the park.”
In addition to the 60-inch (diameter) line, the city is also burying a 36-inch line under the park. These will run perpendicular to each other and will cause the city to “basically regrade 60% of the park.”
Brummels went on to explain that, to bury these new sewer lines, the city will move half a million cubic yards of dirt for the 60-inch sewer line alone. The pipe will then be set in the new trench, where it will sit for four months, allowing the ground to compact.
So, regardless of soccer fields, trail closures were going to happen.
Brummels believes that part of the frustration and potential confusion stems from THOR being brought into the conversation late. Soccer fields and other development were a part of Omaha’s original Tranquility Park budget, and, unfortunately, trails were not.
There will be new trails, but THOR is still unsure of what they’ll look like
If THOR had more time to prepare for and propose a new trail system, Brummels believed that might have taken some of the sting out of the closure announcement. However, they didn’t even have enough time to create a new map with proposed trails.
Much of the future trail system at Tranquility will be determined by the impact of the sewer lines. Brummels explained that the digging and grading will significantly affect the area’s future elevation.
“We can’t design a project and show [the community] what it’s going to look like until we know what the elevations are,” he said. “And we can’t fund a project until we design it. So for a lot of the community, it’s challenging because we just can’t provide very concrete information yet.”
But Brummels is excited for the future of Tranquility Park. While no one, including THOR, is happy about losing access to the trails, they are taking the opportunity to create a more modern trail system.
Ultimately, parts of the trail system are 20 years old, and a revamp may have been needed anyway. NICA coach Ryan Moseley pointed this out in a follow-up email to Singletracks:
After just having finished a farewell lap at Tranquility, I had a few last thoughts. The trail is old, especially compared to the newer stuff I’ve ridden across the country. It is badly rutted and cupped, it has zero flow, and is at times dangerous. […] This is a great opportunity to bring the trail system up to modern standards, if it is done right.
Brummels said that while they have funding commitments, he cannot yet call them “firm commitments” since they don’t know what the budget is. THOR expects to have significant design work completed over the winter, allowing them to begin budgeting.
THOR plans to complete the new trail network at Tranquility Park in 2027 when the city completes its work. While the city might have added THOR in the third quarter, they are asking them to finish the game at the same time.
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