RTC TrailBlog : tunnels

Cal Park Tunnel Opens to Great Fanfare in Marin County

Steve Schweigerdt (RTC) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:45:00 GMT

Last Friday, hundreds of cyclists and walkers celebrated the long-awaited opening of the Cal Park Tunnel in Marin County, Calif., with some even setting off fireworks to commemorate the occasion. All the work by the County of Marin, Marin County Bicycle Coalition (MCBC) and others now pays off with a quick, smooth ride through the hill that separates San Rafael from the ferry terminal in Larkspur and southern Marin County. The shared-use path will share the tunnel with SMART commuter trains when they start running, though the path is walled off from the train in the tunnel and has its own ventilation system. The tunnel features lighting, video monitoring, cell phone reception, a fire suppression system and graffiti-resistant walls.

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has advocated for opening both the Cal Park and Alto tunnels in Marin, and work on the Cal Park Tunnel led to the publication of our Tunnels on Trails study in 2001.

At the opening, speakers touted the shared-use path as the most important aspect of the SMART project, and supervisor Steve Kinsey quipped, "We don't have a high-speed rail, but we do have a high-speed trail... and a low-speed walking trail." You can take a virtual ride through the new tunnel and see it for yourself!

The Cal Park Tunnel joins the recent opening of the Lincoln Hill Path north of San Rafael to complete two new links in the North South Greenway, a non-motorized transportation corridor through Marin County. The Lincoln Hill Path is sandwiched between the SMART train line and Highway 101and allows for an unbroken coast down the hill in an interesting urban canyon of hill cuts and sound walls. If you missed the Cal Park ribbon cutting, the Lincoln Hill Path ribbon cutting will be coming up in January 2011.

New Video Spotlights Moonville Rail Trail

Eric Oberg (RTC) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:16:00 GMT

The Moonville Rail Trail was recently featured on the television show "Our Ohio," a multifaceted marketing campaign of the Ohio Farm Bureau that highlights the abundance of locally produced resources available to Ohioans. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's Midwest Regional Office has been intimately involved from the very beginning stages of the Moonville Rail Trail project, offering technical assistance as well as helping to bring Moonville representatives to local, state and regional trail conferences to share their expertise.

N.C. trail begins to reach into downtown Greensboro

Stephen Miller (RTC) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:29:00 GMT

Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, N.C. is a busy suburban commercial strip, a dangerous place for cyclists and pedestrians, as reported by WGHP-TV above. Now, thanks to a voter-approved bond passed in 2000 and federal Transportation Enhancements funds, active transportation has a safe place along this corridor. Construction of the Battleground Rail Trail, located half-a-block east of Battleground Avenue, began in June, with an anticipated completion date of January 2010. The trail will run in a tunnel under busy Cone Boulevard and although it's only 1.3 miles long, the trail will connect with Greensboro's larger rail-trail system, which until now has served less densely-populated areas and large parks. Connecting people with parks is one of the things trails do best, and it's great to see Greensboro make that connection, as well - but the city isn't stopping with this latest addition to its network. Future phases of the Battleground Rail Trail will extend the extra couple miles into downtown, creating a trail system that runs from nearby farms and parks to the heart of this Southern city.