City of Shawnee

Rail Creek

Rail Creek Park has long been envisioned as a bike-centric park and, above all, a park that serves the City of Shawnee. Resident surveys done to help create the city’s Achieve Shawnee Comprehensive Plan showed that bike facilities and multi-use trails were a top priority, and the City is responding.

“The proposed Rail Creek Park will provide high-quality shared use paths and training areas for bicyclists of a variety of experience levels. The shared-use path system will be integrated throughout the wooded area surrounding the fields…and connect to the existing Mill Creek Streamway trails.” - Achieve Shawnee 2021 (updated 2025)

We are in the early stages of the master planning process for the park, which means that while we are gathering a wide range of input, no decisions have been made about exactly which elements will or will not be included in the new park. This process includes:

  • Reaching out to the people of Shawnee directly at community events to hear what other types of elements they may want to see in Shawnee’s next park.
  • Deploying an online public opinion survey that will be sent to all Shawnee residents.
  • Conducting a thorough economic analysis of potential revenue-generating park elements.
  • Studying the site itself to determine what is possible on the site, and what isn’t.

All of these and more will be collected, analyzed and discussed by the City and Parks and Recreation leadership, a steering committee, and the design team. This information will serve as the basis for a large-scale design workshop in Fall 2025 where the entire team will work together to create concepts. The public will be invited to view the progress each day.

The end product of the workshop is a plan for the park that will likely include several proposed phases of development/construction, and will be submitted to City Council in early 2026 for approval. 
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Key Dates

  • June 6-8: Old Shawnee Days (Direct Public Engagement)
  • June 12: Moonlight Market (Direct Public Engagement)
  • June 27: Online survey launches
  • June 28: PARKED! (Direct Public Engagement)
  • August 24: Tour de Shawnee (Direct Public Engagement)
  • September 8: Online Survey closes
  • Sept/Oct: Workshop with opportunities for public involvement
  • Feb 2026: Master Plan presented to City Council for approval