"It sounded like a cool breeze could take the wall down, potentially."
Jennifer Tillson, Broken Arrow's special project manager, said that about the retaining wall along the Liberty Parkway Trail in a July 29, 2026 update from the City of Broken Arrow. She was describing what an engineering firm found when the city brought it in to inspect the wall. The stretch between Aspen Avenue and Elm Place has been closed since June 2025. If you walk, run or bike in south-central Broken Arrow, you've probably met the barricades.
It hasn't reopened. As of mid-October 2026, the city has not announced a reopening date. That gap is one of two on a trail the city says has been in place for more than 20 years. The west end is closed too, on a much longer schedule. For the next several months, the 9.5-mile Liberty Trail works as a few separate pieces instead of one long route.
Water got behind the wall
The problem sits on an 807-foot section of retaining wall between the Creek Turnpike and Elm Creek. The wall stands 8 feet tall at its highest point and 2 feet at its lowest. City engineers noticed the wall bulging in the spring of 2025.
Tillson put the cause plainly in the city's update: "every time it rains, and we've had a lot of rain, especially this summer, the water is getting stuck behind the wall." The pressure from that trapped water is what's making the wall fail.
The city plans to demolish the old gravity wall and part of the trail next to it. It will replace them with a reinforced-concrete retaining wall, a new walking path, and a drainage system that ties into the existing one.
What the city has scheduled so far
Here is the public record in order:
- June 2025. The city closes the Aspen-to-Elm section after engineers decide it's no longer safe.
- June 15, 2026. City Council awards an $861,086 construction contract to Cherokee Pride Construction.
- July 29, 2026. The city says construction is scheduled to begin in mid-August and should take about four months.
- Aug. 18, 2026. A change order on the City Council agenda proposes adding a water stop, which would bring the contract to $867,926 without changing the contract time. The online record doesn't show the council's final action.
Take a mid-August start and add about four months, and you land around mid-December. That's the earliest the city's own schedule allows. The city's Liberty Parkway Trail page describes the timing more loosely, with repairs beginning "in summer 2026" on a 120-day contract. I couldn't find a city update after July confirming that crews actually started or giving a firm reopening date. Mid-December is an estimate built from the city's plan. If work started late, the opening moves later too.
Please don't go around the barricades in the meantime. The July update said the barricades at both ends of the closed section had been moved out of the way, and Tillson said she had found visitors there every time she checked the site. She warned that the wall could fall and that the site would soon be an active construction zone, which is riskier still. News On 6 also covered the warning the same day.
The west end is on a longer schedule
The second closure is at the other end of the trail. The city says Oklahoma Turnpike Authority construction on a Creek Turnpike bridge in southwest Broken Arrow has closed the trail where it runs under the bridge parallel to New Orleans Street and on north to the Garnett Road connection. That closure lasts for the length of the OTA project. The trailhead parking at 95th and Garnett is temporarily closed as well.
The city's page doesn't name the bridge. OTA's current project in Broken Arrow is the rebuild of the Creek Turnpike bridges over Haikey Creek. In a Sept. 17, 2026 update, OTA said the nearly $72 million job had reached its halfway point. The new eastbound bridge is done, and demolition and construction on the westbound bridge come next. The contractor is OBC Inc. OTA expects to finish by summer 2027.
The bridges are 25 years old, and the trail has been in place for more than 20. The turnpike bridges and the trail beside them are about the same age, and both now need major work. If the wall repair finishes on the city's schedule, the Aspen-to-Elm section could reopen around the turn of the year. The west end would stay closed for months after that.
The Liberty Trail access points that are still open
The trail runs from New Orleans Street (101st Street) near Northeastern State University to the Mingo Trail near the Creek Turnpike and Mingo Valley Expressway, following the turnpike's South Loop. The city lists these parking areas and trailheads apart from the closed Garnett lot:
- 4751 W. New Orleans St., at Rose West Dog Park
- Valley Ridge Trailhead, 5852 S. Date Ave.
- New Orleans St. and Creek Turnpike
- Events Park
The two access points nearest the repair, 5700 S. Aspen Ave. and Elm Place at the Creek Turnpike, are marked on the city's trail map as access points only, with no parking. They also sit at either end of the closed section. Until it reopens, plan to start an out-and-back from one of the lots above and turn around before you reach Aspen or Elm.
Ray Harral Nature Park is the full loop nearby
If you live in The Lakes at Indian Springs, the trail with no closure on it is right in your part of town. Tulsa County Assessor records put lots in The Lakes at Indian Springs I on the 7400 block of S. 2nd St. E. Ray Harral Nature Center & Park is at 7101 S. 3rd St., off Tucson Street (121st Street) west of Lynn Lane.
The park covers 40 acres. It has a nature center, a natural spring system, pollinator gardens, an outdoor classroom, two picnic shelters and a suspension bridge. The park trail map divides the trails by color, so you can make a walk as short or as long as you like:
| Trail | Length |
|---|---|
| Green | 1/4 mile |
| Yellow | 3/8 mile |
| Orange | 3/8 mile |
| Black | 3/4 mile |
| Blue | 7/8 mile |
| Red | 1 mile |
Added up, the six trails come to 3 5/8 miles. The city's facility page says the park has 3 miles of trails, and the two numbers have never been reconciled. The 1-mile Red trail is the closest single match to a Liberty Trail out-and-back. If you want a longer walk, you can link the Red trail to the others.
There's a seasonal detail too. A May 2026 city feature said the park has monarch waystations and gives visitors free wildflower seed mix. The Parks & Recreation catalog lists guided hikes and full-moon hikes, but no fall 2026 dates had been posted when I checked.
The nature center's hours change soon:
- Park grounds: daily, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
- Nature Center through Oct. 31: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Nature Center from Nov. 1 through February: Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
So from November, the nature center opens two hours earlier and closes two hours earlier. That suits a morning walk better than an after-work visit.
If you want a single longer loop, Haikey Creek Park has a 2.3-mile walking trail at 11327 S. Garnett Ave. It's a Tulsa County park, not a city park. It shares its name with the creek under OTA's bridge project, which runs until summer 2027.
What to check before your next walk
These are the open questions:
- Whether Cherokee Pride Construction started on the mid-August schedule. No city update after July says so.
- A reopening date for the Aspen-to-Elm section. The city's plan points to about mid-December at the earliest.
- Whether the city will post a recommended detour. So far it has only encouraged people to use other trails around the city.
The city's Liberty Parkway Trail page keeps the closure notices at the top. That's the first place a reopening should appear.
I've lived in Broken Arrow most of my life, and I know how much a familiar walking route can shape a day. When the Aspen-to-Elm stretch reopens, or if you'd like to talk about which nearby streets put you within easy reach of trails like Ray Harral, I'm glad to help. Joanna Ford is happy to answer your questions. Let's Connect.
