Jonesboro, AR — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — April 3, 2025 — The City of Jonesboro is looking to add more lights to Craighead Forest Park for those walking the park’s 3.2-mile loop trail.
On April 1, the Jonesboro City Council approved a resolution in a 10-0 vote that would add an additional 15 lighting poles to be used on a trail spur that connects the loop trail to the new parking lot located at the main entrance. This comes after the city announced the lights for the loop trail were fully operational as of Feb. 12.
City documents show that the cost for the project was originally $244,000, but with the 15 new lights costing $28,000, the new total is expected to be $272,000.
Parks and Recreation Director Danny Kapales said the main goal of adding these new lights is to make it easier for park goers to come in if they decide to walk the whole trail.
“Say somebody comes in and wants to walk at six o’clock in the morning before they go to work. They can park in that parking lot, and they can have a lit trail all the way in and feel safe getting into the park and walk that,” he said.
The lights will be placed one side of the trail, much like the main trail, between the loop road and the parking lot, according to Kapales. He added they will function much like the lights on the main trail, but they are still working to nail down how all the lights will function.
“The plan is that all the lights will be functioning in a similar fashion, where basically if it is dark at six o’clock in the morning, when it’s time for the park to open up, you’ll have lights on the trail. If it’s six in the afternoon, it’s starting to get dark, the lights will come on, and they’ll be on at least until 10 o’clock when the park is closing,” Kapales said.
In addition to the new lights, there are blue light cameras that overlook the entrance to the parking lot to enhance safety, Kapales said.
“Now they can park right there where there’s a camera watching everybody that enters the park and will be lit so that way, whenever you pull in, you know your vehicle is going to have a visual that’s going to be recorded,” he said.
Kapales said the new additions will also make it easier for visitors to see what’s in front of them if they’re out in the dark, especially if the weather impacts the trail in some way such as storm debris in the way or ice on the ground.
The light installation is expected to be completed by May, with Kapales saying this is expected to be the last portion of the lighting project. While he said the possibility of adding more lights in the future is there, he doesn’t want the whole place lit up.
“It’s still in nature, I want it to be nature,” Kapales said. “I don’t want to be flooding the park with lights, so I’m just really looking at that specific walking trail and that parking lot, so that those runners and walkers that want to use that asset early in the morning, maybe later in the afternoon, have an opportunity to be able to go out there and do it.”