The number of walkers, runners and bikers on St. George trails keeps growing.
The city’s electronic counting sensors recorded more than 1.28 million uses across its network of paved paths in 2025. That’s a 6.6% increase from the previous year and a big number for an area with just over 200,000 residents.
“It shows that we're moving in the right direction,” said Lloyd Sutton, the city’s active transportation coordinator. “Our goal is to provide the community what it values, and it's great to see the feedback from the data that we collected.”
The southern Utah city added about five miles of new trails in 2025, he said. The citywide system now covers close to 90 miles.
“Just a few years ago, we were in the 60-70 mile range,” Sutton said. “The growth of our trails has really accelerated recently, and it's really exciting to see.”
It’ll add even more in 2026.
One project will build six miles of trail along State Route 7, also known as the Southern Parkway, between Interstate 15 and Desert Canyons Parkway. That section will become part of the Utah Trail Network, a statewide plan to create a paved regional trail system with millions in funding already approved by the Utah Transportation Commission. Construction will begin this spring, Sutton said, with the trail ready by the fall or winter.
Giving people multiple ways to get around boosts quality of life and the local economy, said resident Kim Pollock, an avid hand cycler and board member of the Southern Utah Bicycle Alliance.
“For the people that live here, they have a chance to get out and exercise,” he said. “Then beyond that, it's a draw for the city, because we can't tell you how many people come into the city and want to experience some of our bike trails.”
Pollock looks forward to having more miles of trail connected in the future, too. The bicycle alliance is organizing the painting of a 300-foot-long mural to celebrate the area’s long-term plan to link trails together from Snow Canyon State Park to Zion National Park.
Having more paths in more neighborhoods means easy opportunities for people to get outside and stay healthy, he said, while enjoying the renowned landscape.
“When people are on these trails, they get to see parts of St. George that, in a car, you would never see,” Pollock said. “So, I think it's a whole new dimension to living here.”
There are also equity benefits of making car-free living more possible, Sutton said. Getting to work or school without a car in the sprawling city has long been a challenge.
“Transportation is increasingly more expensive. Owning and maintaining a car doesn't work for everybody,” Sutton said. “So, there's other low-cost ways that you could transport yourself and not be excluded from society just because you don't have enough money to afford one method of transportation.”
Some of the federal funding sources that have traditionally paid for trail planning projects, such as the usage-counting sensors, are drying up. But the city has a runway to find alternatives, he said.
Money for trail construction often comes from the state or the GO Bond that St. George voters passed in 2023. The city doesn’t even have to build some of the new paths itself, because St. George requires developers to add segments when they put in a neighborhood.
Many of the new trails coming to St. George in 2026 will connect parts of the city’s existing system.
One will link paths on the north and south sides of the Virgin River near Springs Park and Mall Drive. Construction there will begin in March and should finish by this fall, said Paul Stead, a landscape architect with the St. George park planning division.
Another section will connect the city’s east and west sides through the Santa Clara River Trail and should begin work this summer.
“Once that's complete, you'll be able to ride from Ivins all the way to Washington on our trail system,” Stead said. “It's pretty amazing.”
One idea that local leaders are excited about, he said, is bringing the trail system into downtown St. George. That could mean someday adding a pedestrian corridor on Tabernacle Street and another along Main Street.
“We feel like it's really important to have connectivity in our core, which is something we're lacking right now,” Stead said. “If we could actually get some trails downtown, I think that would really go a long way to connecting everything together.”
