The Roanoker May/June 2017 - 11

DAVID HUNGATE

FROM THE EDITOR

People, puppies and prams.
Everybody does better out on a trail, especially a fine urban one like the Roanoke River Greenway, here at the Thomas Park bridge over the river.

How about the second-largest municipal park (behind South Mountain Park in Phoenix) in the country, and its 60 miles of trails? Sixty.
Carvins Cove's trails go over the mountains, up to the Appalachian
Trail, along the water, you name it.
Or Explore Park's 14 miles?
Or the greenways that got built where John Nolen said they should?
Lick Run Greenway at 4.8 miles. Tinker Creek at 1.4. The new part of
Tinker from Plantation Road to Carvins Cove at 2.5.
Murray Run, Wolf Creek, Mudlick, Mason's Creek, and on and on.
And we haven't even talked about the big one!
And before we do, here's a list from USAToday of "The Top Urban
Bike Paths Across the USA," listing a dozen, in places from Philadelphia
to Sacramento, Boulder to Boston, Portland to Austin.
And then do this: Take their Metropolitan Statistical Area population
and their miles of greenway and do a little arithmetic to determine the
number of inches of greenway per person in the given MSA.
The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, for the extreme, would have
one-tenth of an inch per person on its 28-mile length.
And most of the others are well under an inch per capita.
The closest to us? The Portland, Oregon trail system has about 2.2
inches per capita.
The Roanoke River Greenway is, simply, the King Trail for people
per mile if everyone came out one day: Two and a half inches per
person. (That's 12.7 miles of Roanoke River Greenway shared by an
MSA population of 314,000; and that total jumps to 25 miles over
the next five years)
We could go on-all those trails in Craig (the Ferrier and Lick
THEROANOKER.COM

Branch!), Botetourt (Apple Orchard/Cornelius Creek!), Franklin
(Grassy Hill Natural Area!) and Roanoke (Poor Mountain!) counties-
but the case is already closed: Trails Capital of the World.
And no, not exactly the Silicon Valley case, where the Zuckerbergs
of the world would flock our way.
But trails are hot, and people want information on them. And who
better than criminally under-titled Greenway Coordinator Liz Belcher
for the world to talk to about urban trails? Who better than the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club or the good people at Roanoke Outside
or even the local rec departments to talk to about new wooded trails?
Where better to have a trails conference than right here in Trail Capital,
USA? And we do have at least one manufacturer to build the identity
on: Mountain Laurel Designs builds distinctive ultra-light equipment
for backpackers.
And let's get to work on expanding the ID. Just one: Botetourt
County and Flying Mouse Brewery need to build a trail alongside Va.
779 from the Appalachian Trail to the brewery, so Flying Mouse becomes the walk-to brewery on the Great Trail.
To stay with the theme: Parkway Brewing needs to expand its identity with its front-door connection to Hanging Rock Battlefield Trail.
What if we started to work on every business in the MSA having either
its own trail or a link to one? We need sidewalks on Brambleton Avenue
here at LeisureMedia360 so we can walk on down to the Murray Run
Greenway at Fishburn Park.
Not only a place that came to be via trails, but a place building more
every day: Roanoke, Virginia. Trail Capital of the World.

-KURT RHEINHEIMER
MAY/JUNE 2017 | 11

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The Roanoker May/June 2017

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