How many times has a Polk City mayor stood up and said the Junction Trail is almost finished? If you have lived here more than a couple of years, you already know the answer is more than once. The idea first got floated in April 2017. The first real meeting between the city and Polk County Conservation happened in July 2018. Since then there have been ribbon-cutting rumors, route redraws, and enough council discussion that by October 2024 it was, by the mayor's own count, his 57th meeting on the subject.
So when city hall says the trail is finally closing this fall, the smart response is not applause. It's skepticism, earned over eight years of near misses.
Here's the thing worth paying attention to instead of the press release: Papa's Pizzeria just knocked down a wall.
Eight Years of "Almost Done"
The Polk City Junction Trail sounds simple on paper. It's a 1.25-mile paved connector that links the High Trestle Trail on the northeast side of town to the Neal Smith Trail on the west, the one that follows Saylorville Lake. For most of the last decade, Polk City sat between two of the most heavily used trails in the metro without an easy way to get from one to the other on foot or by bike. County roads were the only option, which is a fine plan until you're riding with kids or trying to get home after dark.
The city and county have been trying to fix that gap for the better part of a decade. Land acquisitions, funding gaps, and a redrawn route (the original plan hugged N. 3rd Street more closely before rising costs forced the city to shift the alignment through Kiwanis Park and the Deer Haven and Crossroads at the Lakes subdivisions instead) all pushed the timeline back year after year.
Mayor Steve Karsjen has been the one showing up to those meetings, and in August 2025 he sounded like someone who had finally cleared a real hurdle rather than announced another delay:
"I'm just very pleased with the progress we've made getting that trail finished."
That quote matters less for the sentiment than for the timing. It came right after the Polk County Conservation Board formally approved the name "Polk City Junction Trail," a nod to the 1875 railroad spur that once ran through the same corridor. A signed resolution is not a press conference. It's the kind of paperwork that only happens once the underlying project has cleared its remaining legal and land questions, which is exactly what had been stalling things for years.
What Actually Changed This Time
Three things separate 2026 from every prior "almost done" claim.
First, the land is secured. Polk County Conservation has completed the acquisitions needed to connect the trail from the High Trestle Trail oasis down to the city limits at NW 126th Street, the piece of the puzzle that had been the biggest open question.
Second, money is committed and moving. The county's remaining segment carries an estimated price tag around $1.4 million and was expected to break ground sometime in 2026, with a finish targeted for the end of the year. A separate $75,000 grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund already paid for the completed Phase 2 segment that runs across the school site behind Big Creek Elementary, ground that has been sitting there since 2024 waiting for the rest of the route to catch up to it.
Third, and this is the one that actually convinced me, the business owners along the route are spending their own money as if the trail is real.
The Real Tell Isn't the City's Newsletter
City press releases are cheap. Renovations are not.
Papa's Pizzeria, owned by Shawn Comer and a fixture in downtown Polk City since 1998, is expanding. General manager Dustin Comer told a Des Moines cycling newsletter the restaurant is adding a bar and opening a doorway straight into the building next door, Fenders Brewing, so the two businesses effectively share space. Comer's read on why: "We're expecting a lot of bikers to come through town."
That is not the kind of capital a restaurant spends on a maybe. Walls do not come down for rumors.
A block away, the same confidence shows up in a smaller but telling way. Ashley Schrage's Oak & Berk, a home décor and apparel shop that started in her basement in 2014 under the name 417 Designs, moved into a permanent storefront off the Polk City square in 2025. The move followed a spirit-wear line that took off starting in spring 2023, and by 2024 Schrage was looking for production space that wasn't her living room. It's not a trail-specific bet the way Papa's expansion is, but it's one more data point that downtown Polk City has been a place people invest in rather than wait on.
Out at Big Creek Lake, Arcadia PC has been drawing crowds to its double deck since opening on the water, another sign that Polk City's food and drink scene is filling in around the trail network rather than sitting still. None of these owners needed the trail to survive. They're betting it will make things better, which is a different kind of signal than anything in a city council packet.
The Route, Turn by Turn
If you haven't looked at the map, here's what the finished trail is supposed to look like, based on the route the city has published:
- It starts northeast of town at the High Trestle Trail oasis, where Polk County Conservation is building the connecting segment through farm fields.
- It enters Polk City at the site of a planned city park near Big Creek Elementary, where the Phase 2 segment is already in the ground.
- It runs west to N. 3rd Street, then follows that street south through Kiwanis Park using pavement that already exists.
- It turns at W. Bluff Street, then N. 2nd Street, passing a planned trailhead near W. Walnut Street that's slated to include parking, green space, picnic tables, and a shelter.
- It cruises by the town square at N. 2nd and W. Broadway, links to an existing trail segment, and turns south at Deer Haven.
- It curves west along E. Bridge Road, crosses S. 3rd Street, and finally meets the Neal Smith Trail just east of Saylorville Lake.
What's confirmed as of now:
- The Phase 2 segment behind Big Creek Elementary is complete.
- Existing pavement along N. 3rd Street through Kiwanis Park is already usable.
- The county has finished the land acquisitions for its connecting segment north of town.
- The trail's official name and the county resolution behind it are locked in.
What's still pending:
- Construction on the county's segment from the High Trestle Trail oasis to the city limits, expected to run through 2026.
- The remaining city phases connecting Kiwanis Park to the square and on to Bridge Road.
- The trailhead build-out near W. Walnut Street.
- The ribbon cutting itself, which the mayor's office said back in August 2025 to expect this fall.
Why the Old Way Made Polk City Feel Landlocked
It's easy to undersell what this actually fixes. The Neal Smith Trail is not a short neighborhood path. It's a paved, 27-mile corridor that runs from the Big Creek beach through the Saylorville Lake area all the way into Des Moines. That's a real commuting and recreation spine, and Polk City sits right next to it.
The problem was never proximity. It was access. If your house was on the wrong side of town from the lake, getting onto that 27-mile trail meant either driving to a trailhead or riding shoulder-to-shoulder with cars on county roads to reach the High Trestle Trail entrance. A town sitting between two major trail systems still felt like a town you had to leave in order to use either one.
The Junction Trail is what turns Polk City's own streets, the same blocks where Papa's and Oak & Berk do business, into part of that network instead of a detour around it.
What to Watch This Fall
If the timeline the city laid out last year holds, you should start seeing signs of a ribbon cutting sometime this fall, likely once the county finishes its final segment north of town. Until then, the ridable pieces are the ones already in the ground: the stretch behind Big Creek Elementary and the existing pavement along N. 3rd through Kiwanis Park. Worth a test ride even before the whole thing connects.
Keep an eye on the city's own trail connector page for the announcement. After eight years of almost, this is the closest Polk City has been to done.
If you're weighing a move to Polk City or anywhere else in the Ankeny area and want someone who knows the difference between a city's timeline and the ground truth, Bo Cosens has been walking clients through Central Iowa real estate long enough to know which promises hold up. Let's Connect.
