The U.S. Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin, says take a hike. We agree. Dr. Benjamin is getting set to issue a Call to Action urging Americans to walk, and is looking for ideas on how to get more Americans walking.
The next big health care breakthrough - which could cut rates of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, and Alzheimer's by at least 40 percent and save Americans $100 billion a year - comes from a place you'd least expect. On your block. At the park. Everywhere.
As part of National Public Health Week, we're calling on our partners to help Surgeon General Regina Benjamin develop her Call to Action on Walkability—an effort to improve walkability and increase walking in our communities.
Never an organization to rest on its laurels, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is always looking to bring new energy and ideas to the work we do - to reinvigorate our mission and keep it relevant in a changing world. One of the ways we do that is by keeping our volunteer Board of Directors fresh, injecting the skills and perspectives of new people on a regular basis and broadening the professions, regions and backgrounds we tap into.
Like many waterways through America's cities, the Bronx River in New York has seen better days. Industrial waste and the impact of millions of people living on and around its banks made the river suffer mightily from pollution in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
The urban environment of Compton, Los Angeles, provides a strong example of why Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's (RTC) Urban Pathways Initiative is such urgent and important work.
Many communities have developed in such an auto-centric way that their roads and streets don't have sidewalks, and walking or riding is either unsafe or, in some instances, banned.
People like Sally Jacobs are rare and treasured. Renowned in her adopted state of Maine as a committed rail-trail advocate and builder, among other roles, Sally's more than three decades in the service of conservation and outdoor recreation forged a tremendous legacy that includes the establishment of the Downeast Sunrise Trail.
When Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) named Florida's Brian Smith one of the 25 inaugural Doppelt Family Rail-Trail Champions, it was in recognition of the years of labor and expertise he had given to the creation and expansion of the Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail, one of Florida's most popular and unique urban pathways.
