Best Of Page 24

Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail | Photo by Eli Griffen

Florida's Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail

Posted 10/01/07 by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in America's Trails | Tagged with Best Of, Florida, Hall of Fame, Trail Destinations, Trail of the Month

Great rail-trails very seldom sit still. They branch out; they bridge; they knit together communities. They turn pathways into parks, commutes into convenience, stress into safety, exercise into recreation. And few rail-trails have worked harder to inspire healthy activity than Florida's 34-mile Pinellas Trail, built along the old CSX Railroad right-of-way from Tarpon Springs south to St. Petersburg—where average winter temperatures in the 70s, tidal waterways and the salt-sticky smell of ocean have made the greenway one of the most trafficked in the country.

Great Allegheny Passage | Photo by Blase Ur

Pennsylvania and Maryland's Great Allegheny Passage

Posted 07/01/07 by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in America's Trails | Tagged with Best Of, Hall of Fame, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Trail Destinations, Trail of the Month

Imagine a continuous rail-trail 150 miles long where annually more than half a million visitors hike, bike, ride horseback, ski or fish. Imagine that trail in the making for more than two decades, growing 20 miles one year, three miles the next, a mere mile the following year, 13.5 the next—and so on. Piecemeal—the work of seven different trail-building organizations in two states.