The U.S. Is Building a Bike Trail That Runs Coast-to-Coast Across 12 States
ecowatch.com
ecowatch.com
There is a great bike trail near my house that runs for dozens of miles... unfortunately major parts of it have become scary to ride on due to the growing number of homeless camps that have spilled onto the path itself in some areas.
Only takes a few weak links in the chain to prevent massive positive infrastructure from reaching completion.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAmerica_Bicycle_Trail
While there may be examples of long "trails" in the US that are entirely exclusive of "road", they're certainly not common.
I've watched this program for a while, but I don't know that much about it. I work with permitting agencies for local events, and I cannot fathom the scope of a project like this. Hopefully someone else has better insight.
As was discussed a bit last time this story came up, one of the issues is that especially in the West a lot of the best passes through mountain ranges already have major roads and/or rail on them. You might have secondary forest roads/4WD roads and trails but those probably aren't great for any distance biking. So, for example, you do see cyclists on I think I-80 in California which goes over the Donner Pass.
Where I live, the numbered US bike routes all follow big highway shoulders that are perfectly rideable and likely to be awful most of the way. The shoulders are wide and the traffic is high.
https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/us-bicycle-...
Who is inconvenienced if the trail is only, say, 95% connected?
1) Cross-country bikers. There are so few of these kinds of people that they aren't even really worth thinking about (note: I am one).
2) Local bikers who live near the unconnected portions. Usually the unconnected portions will be either in a) extremely rural areas, or b) extremely built-up areas. If it's (a), then there naturally aren't many bikers for that section anyway, since the population of the area will be low. And if it's (b), there will be more bikers, but also there will generally be alternate routes that are bikeable if you can't go on that exact route.
So, all in all, this project is nice regardless of whether it is fully connected.
But I assume most high value cargo, e.g. an iPhone, goes by air except locally.
https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/freight_in_america/...
It just would have been nice to see our freight needs prioritize safety and environmental friendliness, but we've prioritized speed instead.
Market forces are much more powerful with trucking for instance because anyone can buy a truck and start a business. Same thing with container ships - buy a ship, go into business (don't know about port berth complications)
So with rail, the rail owners get in the way. It's like if someone owned the roads or the ocean and worked on collecting rent.
I wonder if there were a model where anyone could use the rails, like anyone can use the highway system, and then rail shipping/use would go up.
Antitrust law should have been used to prevent it, but it wasn’t, and now the damage has been done.
They’re kind of boring sometimes due to the even grading, but they are dedicated bike paths.
Still, I'll take them over any but the most rural of roads.
I had no idea it was going to be part of something bigger. At least on that portion, it's not nearly as complete as the official map suggests.
There are obviously other major walking and riding routes based on rail lines that are no longer in use and it would be interesting to see more of them interconnected
For example, a 32 mile old railroad in Santa Cruz, CA that is being revitalized for electric trains AND getting a bike path built alongside it: https://www.railandtrail.org/discover.html
Common sense either you need to
1. shrink the train (and what more than "light rail" speaks to the pain and embarrassment that accompanies crawling back from automobile culture)
2. expand the right-of-way
3. commit to turning over the trail once the rail is reconstructed
Which is it?
I live near a rail line that was converted to a multi use trail and as part of the conversion process there had to be a decision made about past encroachment onto the right of way — mostly homeowners who had pushed their property boundaries closer to the actual rail. Looking at the planning maps it was surprising how wide the path is, but I suspect that it is to allow for the embankments and cuttings needed to keep a railroad level (or at least to keep grades within tolerance)
The Rail Trail will be within a mile of 92 parks, 44 schools and half the county’s population. In addition to the 32 mile Rail Trail spine, the MBSST Network Master Plan includes 18 miles of spur trails connecting the Rail Trail with other destinations.
They could upgrade the future by putting optical fiber into the roadbed and making it available at all the locations along the way.
This was an important prelude, cross country routes and coast routes too. Really neat maps and made with love, vision and a spirit of adventure that needs to be brought back.
Note that US roads in comparison to British roads are far better for bicycles as the margin at the edge is like a good UK bike path. In western states where there is considerable distance and you need to put the miles in then these are good roads.