Every year, the National Park Service helps hundreds of locally driven projects that create opportunities for healthy outdoor recreation, connect youth with the outdoors, and connect communities to parks.
For more than 20 years, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) has been one of the strongest members of Pennsylvania's trail development, advocacy and promotion community. Thanks in part to our efforts, Pennsylvania is now a state with plenty of rail-trail activity, a strong supporter base and a wonderful network of outdoor recreation assets.
The U.S. Congress last week was handed the statistical analysis of the first three years of the groundbreaking Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP), which dedicated $25 million to each of four communities across the country to accurately demonstrate whether such investments equate to significantly higher levels of walking and bicycling, and a reduction in vehicle miles traveled.
"There is a perception that (trails) are nice amenities from a recreational standpoint, but with $4-a-gallon gas I have seen a lot of people out there biking and making an economic choice," Shailen Bhatt, secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation, told Delaware Online this week.
Word just came in from the Department of Transportation that the U.S. Congress will later today receive the much-anticipated report detailing the measureable impacts of the Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP).
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) is this week mobilizing its thousands of members and supporters in Pennsylvania in defense of the Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund--a immensely popular and successful program that has supported trails and open space creation in that state for the past 19 years.
As the U.S. Congress debates the next federal transportation bill, we're always excited to see the evidence keep mounting in support of the value of trails, walking and bicycling in communities of every size.
The people of Lexington, Ky., are pushing ahead with plans to develop an impressive biking and walking network built around a number of urban and rural rail-trails.
In May 2008, I traveled to Michigan to explore the 62-mile North Central State Trail, which runs from Gaylord to Mackinaw City at the tip of the Lower Peninsula. I'd timed my visit for the trail's official opening that spring, and I spent several days enjoying the region's incredible natural backdrop.
When it comes to layers of history, few pathways can top the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail. This central Connecticut corridor started life as a waterway, then turned into a railroad, then became a multi-use trail. Lately, it's become a crucial link in an ambitious 3,000-mile greenway from Florida to Maine.
Speaking at the 2012 National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C., U.S. Representative Donna Edwards (D-MD) yesterday urged transportation planners and advocates to promote bicycling and walking as a means of improving conditions and access in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
Though often prefixed by the words "long-awaited," and "delayed," the Bloomingdale Trail project to convert an elevated rail line in Chicago into a multi-use recreational space is moving ahead pretty quickly these days.
