RiverWalk and Weldon Peete parks are special places in our city.

On any day, especially when the weather is nice, people can be seen at both parks taking a stroll, fishing from the banks of Barren River, jogging or riding bikes along the greenways trails or looking out at the river over the old College Street pedestrian bridge at the RiverWalk at Mitch McConnell Park.

The parks are great venues that offer a lot and soon hopefully they could offer a lot more for our citizens and visitors to our city to enjoy.

On Tuesday night at the Bowling Green City Commission meeting, commissioners will look to apply for a grant that would fund major improvements at the parks. Commissioners will seek a grant up to $750,000 from the National Park Service. The funds would be used for a boat ramp, fishing platforms, a rock climbing park, disc golf course, picnic pavilions, restrooms, parking lots and greenways linking the two parks on either side of Barren River.

These proposed improvements, which are part of the city’s parks and recreation long-term master plan, all sound like they would be great additions to these parks and would be very beneficial to our citizens.

Just think how neat it would be to go down to the river and actually have nice platforms from which to fish. It would be especially neat if the city could put fishing platforms at both Weldon Peete and the RiverWalk as these are both very popular for fishermen.

If the grant is approved, the city may receive only a portion of the $750,000 and therefore only some of the projects could be built at this point. City officials say the priority project would be the boat ramp into Barren River underneath the old College Street bridge so rescue workers would have access to the river.

It’s a good strategy for the city to put a permanent boat ramp under the bridge, because now it is somewhat of a makeshift boat ramp. Having a reliable boat ramp would benefit both rescue squad members and those wanting a better ramp for recreation.

Essentially, the project will be done in phases, and that’s all right. This is a pretty large project to begin with, so it is quite understandable that it is going to take some time to get the phases completed.

We are very excited about the prospect of all of these new additions possibly coming to two of our parks in downtown Bowling Green and applaud the city commission for moving forward in applying for the grant to make it happen.