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Master Plan
and Needs Assessment Introductory Chapters
To purchase a copy of the East Coast Greenway in
Pennsylvania Master Plan and Needs Assessment, contact Emily
Linn.
Chapter 1:
The East Coast Greenway - A Trail Connecting Cities
The East Coast Greenway (ECG) will connect cities along the Eastern seaboard of the United States from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida. Its multiple-use path and surrounding green corridor will carry people into East Coast cities like New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Miami, and smaller towns like Rocky Hill, Con-necticut and Awendaw, South Carolina. This bicycle and pedestrian trail will join other major East Coast thoroughfares to provide an arterial route for recreation, tourism, and commuting. Users of the ECG will enjoy a healthy, inexpensive way to travel though this unique region of natural and cultural interest. Locally, the trail will provide rural, suburban, and urban communities with a place to recreate with family and neighbors, and a way to draw visitors into their communities, spurring revitalization and increases in community livability.
The concept of forming an off-road trail that connects cities along the East Coast of the United States began in the late 1980's, when East Coast Bicycle Confer-ence participants conceived of a trail connecting New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. Since then, interest in healthy lifestyles and livable communi-ties has risen, opening the doors for the development of the East Coast Green-way. Around the world, individuals and communities are awakening to the bene-fits of short- and long-distance muscle-powered travel. Whether taking a week-end to bike from a big-city home into the fresh country air, or commuting by bi-cycle from a suburban home to a city business, car-free travel provides a trail user with exercise and stress-free quiet time, while working to alleviate local air pollution and road congestion.
For communities along the Greenway, influxes of cyclists, in-line skaters, walk-ers, cross-country skiers, and runners leads to increased revenues as trail users stop to "refuel' in local restaurants, take a "pit stop" in local bicycle shops or sporting goods stores, and possibly take a tourist's "detour" to local museums, parks, or historical areas. For example, in one study, the National Park Service found that three rail trails--in Iowa, Florida, and California--contributed between $1.2 million and $1.9 million per year to their home communities. These accom-panying increases in local revenue can spawn economic development and revi-talization along a trail corridor.
However, economic increases from Greenway-related spending are not the only benefits a community can expect to reap from the East Coast Greenway. Local residents of towns along the ECG will experience increases in community livabil-ity and quality of life that come from the beautification and revitalization of the area around the trail. One example of this type of benefit is along the Pinellas Trail in Florida, where store vacancy rates in one town along a trail corridor dropped from 35 percent to zero after the construction of the trail began in 1990. For urban and rural areas whose community spirit and pride suffer from blight or economic disinvestment, a new greenway can have a positive effect on the lives of local residents.
To help bring these benefits to urban areas and small towns along the East Coast, the national East Coast Greenway Alliance works to spur local interest and support for the East Coast Greenway vision. With its home offices in Rhode Is-land, the national East Coast Greenway Alliance builds state entities in each of the 15 states the East Coast Greenway travels through. These state entities are made up of collections of trail advisors and activists who push locally for the de-velopment of their trail segment.
Clean Air Council, firmly rooted in the history and development of bicycle and pedestrian rights, is the entity coordinating ECG efforts in the state. Clean Air Council is a member-supported, non-profit environmental organization dedicated to protecting everyone's right to breathe clean air. As the organization adminis-tering the ECG in Pennsylvania, and the chair of the Pennsylvania Committee of the national East Coast Greenway Alliance, Clean Air Council is bringing together local trail developers, regional environmentalists, and state officials to coordinate the development of each of the 6 Pennsylvania trail segments.
The national East Coast Greenway Alliance provides coordination of local trail ef-forts, like those occurring in Pennsylvania, while setting the vision for the trail and the parameters for trail designation. The state organizers and the national East Coast Greenway Alliance work together to fuse local trail projects into an East Coast Greenway that resembles a "string of pearls." This type of develop-ment allows local trail segments to retain their identity and control, while provid-ing them with the strength and motivation of a national trail effort.
Today the ECG has been designated a National Millennium Trail and has set the goal of completing the full 2,600 miles of ECG trail by 2010. The trail will be largely off-road, on smooth surface paths whenever possible, to allow bicyclists, wheelchair users, and skaters, as well as pedestrians, to use the ECG. However, as the ECG is a "trail connecting cities", there will be places, such as Philadelphia for example, where taking the trail off-road and away from automobiles is not an option. In cities along the East Coast, bicycle lanes, sidewalks, and urban parks will be used where necessary.
Over 200 miles of ECG have been designated and clearly marked with East Coast Greenway signs, mostly in Maine and in Rhode Island. As more trails are com-pleted, maps, guides, and kiosks will be placed along the ECG to point out sites of interest and to encourage local trail development efforts. Today, those 200 miles of designated trail make up 8% of the 2,600-mile ECG trail goal. As the trail develops here in Pennsylvania, and as interim on-road and permanent off-road sections of the East Coast Greenway begin to connect across the country, benefits to quality of life, resident health, and local economies will materialize. Soon, trail users across the country will move through Pennsylvania from Morris-ville to the Delaware state border, and the areas along the trail will reawaken to their history and to the possibilities for the future of their communities.
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