Challenge issued to create trail across U.S

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy President David Burwell has issued an ambitious challenge to create a trail from Washington, D.C., to Washington state in the next 10 years.

July 2, 1999
Web posted at: 12:34 p.m. EDT (1634 GMT)

Interested in biking across the United States but can't stand sharing the experience with car traffic? Soon there will be many new routes to choose from and the first coast-to-coast trail system, if a challenge from a trails group is met.

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy President David Burwell issued the ambitious challenge in remarks delivered at the conservancy's four-day-long Second International Trails and Greenways Conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.

"Let this trail be maximally accessible to all users. Let it glorify the history and culture of the population centers it will connect. Let it also heal — not obliterate — the landscapes through which it passes. Let's commit to this vision, and let's start now," Burwell said.

The trail is expected to connect Washington, D.C., to Washington state, covering much of the same territory crossed by the nation's first western pioneers. A substantial part of the trail already exists in the form of publicly owned abandoned railroad corridors and other structures. The real challenge in the next 10 years, the time period proposed for the trail's completion, will be to determine where the missing pieces are.

"As American transportation needs evolved, we were left with many of these resources," said Marianne Fowler, senior vice president of the Rails-to-Trails Programs.

Now Americans can take advantage of the publicly owned resources to create an evolution in enhancing recreation and reducing vehicle pollution.

Burwell announced the public debut of two new trail and greenway design guidelines: one for funding transportation enhancement projects and the other for funding bicycle and pedestrian facilities. The guidelines were developed jointly by the Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

"Both of these guidelines go well beyond where to put the pavement," Burwell said. "For the first time, context is celebrated in trail, greenway and bike path design. This is good news for our movement."

Burwell's call for a coast-to-coast trail in10 years follows a series of milestones reached by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. When RTC was founded in l986, there were only 100 rail trails in the United States. Today, a national network of rail trails serves the public in all 50 states and nearly 1,200 additional projects are under way. When completed, these rail trails will represent 38,000 miles of open trail, or 90 percent of the current 43,000 miles of interstate highway.

Last year, Rails-to-Trails celebrated the opening of the nation's 1,000-mile rail trail, which straddles the Rhode Island-Connecticut border and connects the two states' capitals.

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