"That's a very dangerous intersection and we've been using that to cross the street." A Bentonville cyclist said this at the Oct. 2 opening of the new tunnel under Southeast 14th Street, according to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and added that the tunnel "is going to eliminate the potential for some serious accidents."
The intersection is P Street and 14th, also known as Arkansas 102. For roughly a decade, northbound Razorback Greenway traffic in Bentonville had to cross there. That crossing is gone from the route now. The bigger change is where the trail goes after it. The Greenway between Bentonville High School and the downtown square now runs through the Walmart Home Office campus, so the stretch that used to be the trail's worst gap now leads straight into the campus's coffee shops, bike shops, and restaurants.
Ten years of P Street
When the Greenway was finished in 2015, the route through south Bentonville wasn't really trail. Parks Director David Wright described it to the Democrat-Gazette. Northbound cyclists rode down P Street, which has no sidewalks or bike lanes, and waited for the light to cross 14th. From there the Greenway followed J Street from 14th up to Eighth, west of where the Walmart campus now sits.
Victor Gurel, CEO of Trailblazers, called 14th Street a "very busy five-lane highway." He told the paper the old setup, where the Greenway ended at P Street, "was very confusing to pedestrians and cyclists alike."
The Greenway runs 40 miles north from Fayetteville through Johnson, Springdale, Lowell, Rogers, and Bentonville before ending in Bella Vista. In most places it runs separate from traffic. In south Bentonville it rode a street and waited at a signal, and Wright told the paper the stretch from Bentonville High School to the downtown square used to be the most challenging part of the entire Greenway.
A quarter mile of grass, then 200 feet under the highway
The fix came as two projects. The City of Bentonville built about a quarter mile of new 12-foot-wide concrete trail, starting where the Greenway used to turn onto Southeast P Street east of the high school. The new trail runs through green space west of Southeast P and O streets, behind the homes there. Wright called it a "real serene little space."
That trail leads into the tunnel, which Trailblazers built separately under 14th Street. It comes out where the Greenway picks up on the Walmart campus, on the north side of the highway.
The two projects cost very different amounts:
- City trail segment: about $625,000 for construction and geotechnical services. A $500,000 grant from the Arkansas Department of Transportation covered most of it, and the city paid the rest. Work started in August 2025, and Wright estimated the major work was done around Aug. 30.
- Tunnel: more than 200 linear feet long, about $7.7 million to design and build, according to Gurel. Construction started on the north side of 14th Street at the end of May 2025. Gurel considers the Oct. 2 ribbon cutting the tunnel's finish date.
The tunnel cost more than 12 times as much as the trail segment, and almost all the money went into the 200 feet under the highway. Walking south to north, the quarter mile of grass is the only new piece of trail you'll actually see.
Bentonville Parks and Recreation, Trailblazers, and Arkansas Moves held the ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 2, at 1802 Associate Drive. The city's announcement said the trail and tunnel would open to the public that day. The Democrat-Gazette's preview noted a 70% chance of showers and thunderstorms in the forecast for that Friday. The paper's photos show the celebration went ahead, with Arkansas Moves Coalition director Jessica Pearson handing out hats.
North of 14th, the campus carries the trail
Once you're past the tunnel, the route is built differently. On the old route, you had to deal with one street after another between 14th and Eighth. Now Walmart's campus trails take the Greenway under the cross streets the rest of the way. Wright described it this way:
"It tunnels under Tenth Street, it tunnels under Eighth Street, it tunnels under J Street and it brings you all the way into the downtown square."
Before this month, the campus trails had no clean way to connect south to the high school and the long Greenway run toward Rogers. The 14th Street tunnel is that link. When the Home Office opened, Walmart described the campus as having seven miles of walking and biking paths.
Bentonville School District deputy superintendent Janet Schwanhausser told the paper it's a "win" any time the district can safely put students on a bicycle. The connection also matters for getting to work. In a regional survey KUAF reported in October 2025, 15% of respondents said they mainly used the Greenway to commute, and 91% said they mainly used it for recreation. That survey came before the tunnel opened. The Greenway now passes directly through Walmart's headquarters on its way to the square, and that 15% figure gives a starting point for any future count.
The stops the old route never had
The old P Street and J Street route passed a stoplight, plus whatever was on J Street at the time. The new route runs through a campus that Walmart executive Dan Bartlett described at its January 2025 opening, as reported by the Bentonville Bulletin, as "everybody's campus, not just Walmart associates' campus."
The Bulletin's guide to what's open to the public was last updated Aug. 10, 2026. These listings on it are especially useful if you're on a bike or on foot:
- Onyx at The Preserve, 1101 Excellence Dr., on the southern edge of campus. The Bulletin says the cafe is surrounded by greenery and has a bike trail running across its roof.
- Airship on the Porch, Airship Coffee's café in the middle of campus.
- Doyenne Coffee by Onyx, inside the Hula building.
- Bentonville Bicycle Company, a full-service bike shop.
- Gearhead Outfitters, outdoor gear and apparel.
- Flyway Brewing, the North Little Rock brewery and taproom, at 1410 SE Eighth St. It opened Aug. 10.
- Wright's Barbecue, the Arkansas-based smokehouse.
- Table Au Centre, a "Euro-style bistro" from The Table Mesa Restaurants Group.
- Clementine's Ice Cream, a small-batch creamery from St. Louis.
- Welcome Center/Spark Shop, which has visitor information and Walmart merchandise.
Some of these are new this year. KNWA reported in January 2026 that Wright's Barbecue had opened about a week earlier. Table Au Centre, Starbucks, and Anthropologie opened the week of April 27, according to the Bentonville Bulletin. Before Oct. 2, getting to any of them from the south meant crossing 14th Street at grade.
Three restaurants were still listed as not open in the August update: Hatch Early Mood Food, Riserva Bar + Tapas, and Yokozuna Sushi. Falfurrias Rooftop Lounge, on top of the AC Hotel, is open evenings Monday through Saturday, according to the same guide. If you want to stop there on the ride home, plan around those hours.
Forty-one miles by Oct. 20
Bentonville's tunnel is the first of two Greenway openings in Benton County this month. Bella Vista will cut the ribbon at 10 a.m. Oct. 20 on a one-mile extension at the Berksdale walking path, east of 70 Sugar Creek Center. The extension runs from Sugar Creek Center, where the trail currently ends, under U.S. 71 just north of Riordan Road, and west to the Blue Bird Trailhead. That brings the Greenway to 41 miles.
Bella Vista communications director Cassi Lapp told the Democrat-Gazette that construction should be complete by the ribbon cutting, though some small items, "such as lighting in certain places," may still be unfinished. Trailblazers is paying the contractor, Ground Zero Construction, and the project costs Bella Vista nothing.
Kara King chairs the Razorback Greenway Alliance, whose members come from the seven cities that own and maintain the trail. She has said the long-term goal is to extend the Greenway into Missouri, and the alliance is in talks with the Missouri Department of Transportation. By the end of October, a ride north out of Bentonville can continue to the Blue Bird Trailhead in Bella Vista without crossing 14th Street at a signal.
Whether you're out on the new route this fall or thinking about how close you'd like to live to it someday, I'm happy to talk through which Bentonville streets sit nearest the Greenway and its new connections. At Amanda Gainey, I handle the details so you can enjoy the ride. Let's Work Together.
