RTC TrailBlog

As it was last year, the Florida Office of Greenways and Trails (OGT) was scheduled for elimination earlier this week by the Florida Senate despite the office's success in building partnerships and leveraging funding. However, due to the enormous and coordinated grassroots support that was demonstrated by RTC, our partner organizations and many dedicated trail supporters last year, the threat was quickly dropped. We owe a special thank you to Senators Aronberg, Lawson and Baker of the Senate General Government Appropriations Committee.

We still have work to do. OGT is no longer targeted for elimination and most of the mission and subsequent positions have been restored. All but two of the office's positions will be back another year to continue building our ever-expanding statewide system of trails. Senator Aronberg supports us strongly and has sponsored an amendment to restore the remaining two positions at a meeting that will, most likely, occur on Friday. Please take a moment to thank our legislative champions--Senators Aronberg, Lawson and Baker--as well as to our important House friends--Representatives Robaina and Cannon. Without them, OGT, which won Florida the designation of Best Trails State by American Trails, would be roadkill!

Their e-mail addresses are:

Senator Aronberg: aronberg.dave.web@flsenate.gov
Senator Lawson: lawson.alfred.web@flsenate.gov
Senator Baker: baker.carey.web@flsenate.gov
Representative Robaina: julio.robaina@myflorida.gov
Representative Cannon: dean.cannon@myfloridahouse.gov

Thank you and stay tuned. We hope to have an important announcement concerning the Florida Department of Transportation soon!

Last week, the Safeway grocery store at the Rhode Island Avenue Shopping Center in Washington, D.C., closed its doors. Although the store location was walkable from the Edgewood neighborhood and close to a Metro station, the neighborhood is bisected by a traffic-choked road and a rail line, leaving the shopping center cut off from many potential customers arriving on foot and by Metro. Many elderly residents of the Edgewood Terrace complex had used the Safeway but now must negotiate narrow sidewalks on busy Rhode Island Avenue to access a different supermarket instead.

At NRDC Switchboard, Kaid Benfield took a look at this closing as a case where a potentially transit-oriented neighborhood has the right ingredients but an insufficient connection between development and transit, with the result hurting both businesses and residents:

Craig Muckle, an official for the Safeway chain, told Washington Post writer Hamil R. Harris that the Edgewood Safeway had been unprofitable for a decade: "While we are closer to the Metro, the Giant is more convenient for people coming off the Metro, and it is located in a plaza that is frankly more vibrant."

In addition to the Metro, the rail corridor bisecting the neighborhood is home to the Metropolitan Branch Trail. With the trail comes an opportunity to better connect the neighborhood with its Metro station. The Edgewood section of the trail is being completed this spring, and plans are already under way for a pedestrian bridge between the trail at the shopping center and the Metro faregates. Students of nearby schools and residents of Edgewood Terrace will no longer have to risk walking alongside speeding traffic on Rhode Island Avenue, or jumping a fence to cross active CSX tracks illegally. Along with a mural painted last summer (the city's largest), these new connections provide Edgewood an opportunity for transit- and trail-oriented development.

Rendering of pedestrian bridge concept by The Louis Berger Group

As part of the Urban Pathways to Livable Communities conference in New Orleans, a walk of the Lafitte Corridor introduced attendees to the Crescent City's own urban pathway project. The first stop on the walk was hosted by Bart Everson of Friends of Lafitte Corridor and Daniel Samuels of the Lafitte Greenway Steering Advisory Committee. In this audio slideshow, they provide some background on the history of the corridor itself and the effort to convert it to a multi-use greenway.

Walking challenges are a great way to raise the awareness of trails in the community and inspire regular use. A challenge motivates people to join groups and aim for a target number of steps, miles or minutes walking. As participants report their miles, their team can trace progress toward a goal that they couldn't do alone. Hopefully after the challenge is over walking will be a routine for the participants.

Here are a few examples of Walking Challenges on the west coast:

• With the completion of the Whittier Greenway Trail in Los Angeles County, Activate Whittier is challenging groups to take the Hollywood Walk to Fame by traversing the country from New York City to Hollywood with star-studded stops along the way to the Oscars. The website has suggested routes with mileage that include 4.2 miles along this rail-trail.
• Walk the California Coast with San Francisco's Shape UP Walking Challenge. Challengers join teams and walk 1,016 miles, the equivalent of the length of the California coast, in 10 weeks. If they complete that level, participants can continue their virtual tour across the country or even around the world. The San Francisco Department of Public Health reports that the program has gone viral and gained momentum since inception.
• With the Itida-Walk you can track your progress across Alaska as you follow the sled dogs in the Itidarod. Instead of tracking miles, this program tracks minutes of walking, encouraging participants to walk 30 minutes a day for 35 days for a total of 1,049 minutes.

Photo from Shape UP San Francisco.

Of all a rail-trail’s charms, one of the most endearing is that a pleasant surprise always may be just around the bend—an unexpected vista, a rare bird sighting, a chance encounter with a family of deer crossing the path.

Apparently, even in the winter wonderland that was the Northeast—where the trails themselves were hidden by knee-deep snows—this holds true.

On the NJ.com blog, “The Adventures of Betty the Bike,” Denise Copeland shares the tale of last week’s walk along the Sussex Branch Trail, New Jersey, near the Waterloo Trailhead.

An anonymous snow artist (or was it elves? Sprites? Fairies?) transformed a stretch of the trail into a curious wintry statuary with jovial figures and menacing wild things alike.

See for yourself—check out Snow sculptures on the Sussex Branch Trail, New Jersey.

Photo by Denise Copeland / Betty the Bike

New Legislation Will Build Healthy, Clean, Cost-Effective Transportation Options

Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010 — Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s Campaign for Active Transportation celebrated a milestone today with the release of Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-Ore.) Active Community Transportation (ACT) Act of 2010 [H.R. 4722].

This landmark legislation promises to launch a new era of investment in building complete systems of facilities that make it safe and convenient for Americans to choose to walk or bicycle instead of drive for routine, short trips. The ACT Act creates a competitive fund to which communities can apply and receive funding to build these active transportation systems. In the process, tens of thousands of jobs in construction and small businesses will be created, invigorating local economies, while also saving Americans money at the pump.

“This is possibly the most important legislation to come down in the last 20 years for those who value trails, walking and biking, and we applaud the visionary leadership Representative Blumenauer and his colleagues have shown through the creation of this bill,” says Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) President Keith Laughlin. “In 2007, when we launched our Campaign for Active Transportation at RTC’s Portland conference, we knew it would take a focused, smart investment plan to make active transportation systems commonplace. The ACT Act is that plan, and we’ve never been more ready.”

ACT Act Findings
Americans are hungry for safe and convenient opportunities to walk or bicycle to work, school, shops, transit and other daily destinations. Respondents in a national poll said they would spend 15 times current levels on walking and bicycling (currently, less than two percent of all transportation dollars) at the expense of what they view as lopsided spending on roads. ACT Act states that:

• Nearly half of the trips taken in the United States today are within a 20-minute bicycle ride, and half of those trips are within a 20-minute walk;
• Further, 90 percent of transit trips begin with walking or bicycling;
• There is huge potential for an increased role for active transportation to these nearby destinations, and;
• The ACT Act is can maximize mode shift by providing “intensive, concentrated funding of active transportation systems rather than discrete piecemeal projects.”  

March is just around the corner, with warmer weather—and thoughts of getting outside and getting active—not far behind.

It's also National Nutrition Month and, in observance, North Carolina Public Health has published a tip sheet outlining simple steps one can take to create a more healthy, active lifestyle.

In "5 Easy Ways to Create Walkable/Bikeable Communities," the advice is sound and to the point:

• Understand the issues
• Speak your mind
• Write a letter, send an e-mail message
• Get involved with local trail groups
• Walk and bike the talk

Even better, both Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and TrailLink.com are featured as go-to resources for connecting with the trails and trail groups near you.

For more, see 5 Easy Ways to Create Walkable/Bikeable Communities from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health.

Trail/Bicycle/Pedestrian Projects to Help Create Jobs and Spur Economic Growth

Announced Wednesday, Feb. 17, several active transportation investments were included among 51 projects to receive TIGER funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Discretionary Grant Program is a highly competitive, national opportunity to fund transportation projects that are “innovative, multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional,” and that “promise significant economic and environmental benefits to an entire metropolitan area, a region or the nation,” according to the press release from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

“TIGER grants will tackle the kind of major transportation projects that have been difficult to build under other funding programs,” said LaHood. “This will help us meet the 21st century challenges of improving the environment, making our communities more livable and enhancing safety, all while creating jobs and growing the economy.”

More than 1,400 applications were submitted. RTC encouraged its partners in our Campaign for Active Transportation to enter the competition back when the TIGER program guidelines were posted in June 2009. It is an exciting measure of progress that several Active Transportation Campaign projects made the final cut, including:

• Philadelphia, Pa., and Camden, N.J., together received $23 million to develop a pedestrian and bicycle network, including commuter routes close to downtown. The work will provide a double economic lift, creating immediate construction jobs as well as impressive ongoing economic development benefits for areas hardest hit by the economic downturn. The Camden GreenWay will receive $5.8 million, a substantial down payment on the inspiring vision of an interconnected trail system that our partner, Cooper's Ferry Development Association, helped develop for RTC’s Active Transportation Campaign. This grant also will fill gaps in the Schuylkill River Trail in Philadelphia, part of the East Coast Greenway.
• Indianapolis, Ind., was awarded $20.5 million to complete an eight-mile trail in the heart of downtown that will provide critical connectivity to their active transportation system. The project will link commercial, residential and cultural destinations. As with Indianapolis’ case statement for RTC’s campaign, the project reflects careful prioritization to maximize economic, environmental and health benefits of the investment. A video (embedded below) describes this project in more detail.
• Burlington, Vt., will receive $3.15 million for waterfront development, including a trail that is an important piece of Burlington’s planned active transportation system.

These three projects alone will receive more than 3 percent of TIGER funding, and nearly half of the funded projects include bicycle and pedestrian elements, such as complete streets or bridge access. View the complete list of the TIGER projects chosen, and check out the Active Transportation Campaign Case Statements RTC gathered from communities across the country in support of more federal investment in trails, biking and walking. They are evidence of a groundswell of support for focused federal investment to complete active transportation systems to make it safe and convenient to choose bicycling and walking for shorter routine trips.

This post has been edited by Kartik Sribarra to reflect minor corrections to the Philadelphia, Pa., and Camden, N.J., bullet and by Stephen Miller to include a video about the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.