Georgia’s vision for trails Prophecy and problem solving; Georgia Trail Summit a first in 15 years
By Herb Hiller A
conference of Georgians that didn’t blink at the idea of marketing bicycle tours to commemorate Sherman’s March to the Sea
hardly raised an eyebrow at the assertion that trails, not cars, are fronting Georgia’s urban future.
If the ravaging of antebellum culture could be re-pack- aged as economic development, why not trails to free Georgia from its oath to suburban culture? The Georgia Trail Summit in April was the first in 15
years. Although its 150 registrants spent less than a day and a half under the same roof, they came away convinced of trails ascendant in a future channeled through volunteerism, non- profits, and a supportive private sector. Government would be vital, but the movement would lead. The summit took place in Athens, a virtual city-state
where arts and conservation thrive thanks to the $2 billion annual economic impact of the University of Georgia. A riv- erfront greenway has become a focus for off-campus housing and for visitors to the city’s convention hall two blocks away. Another 39 miles of trail will connect Athens with Union Point, in Georgia’s rural north. However, it was trail leadership from Atlanta that shone the summit beacon. Decatur bike commuter and lifelong trails advocate Tracie Sanchez successfully launched the sum- mit idea, and organized the volunteers and agency people needed to pull it off. The nonprofit MillionMile Greenway,
led by Atlantan Jim Langford, offered up the initial challenge grant funding of $5,000. Two more nonprofit leaders juxtaposed Georgia’s past
and future and made clear that the past was– well, passed. One called Atlanta “the poster child for sprawl.” Another pointed to Millennials moving to urban centers, including Atlanta, “by the millions, commuting, shopping and recreat- ing without cars.”
Atlanta’s BeltLine and PATH Foundation
Ryan Gravel spoke with prophetic vision. It was he in 1999, who as an engineering doctoral student at Georgia Tech, dreamed up the Atlanta BeltLine. That’s the multi-use path in development by a public-private-nonprofit coalition that over the next 20 years will rim downtown with 33 miles of trails centered on an abandoned 22-mile rail corridor, con- necting 45 in-town neighborhoods, public parks, MARTA commuter rail and the Atlanta Streetcar. As many as 10,000 on a Sunday enjoy the seven miles already in place. “People along the route have discovered a vision better than anybody else was showing them,” Gravel said. “They’re filling it out with affordable and public housing, with arts, farmers markets, local food, pollinators, bocce ball courts. “People are really organizing their lives around this new
corridor. It lets them live the lives they want.” By 2015, an elevated portion of the BeltLine will run
directly through the third level of the million-square-foot multi-purpose Ponce City Market that developers say will have bike valet, changing facilities, and showers. They project that if 10 percent of daily visitors arrive by bike or on foot, that will represent 1,000 non-polluting commutes. ”We’re not only dramatically changing the physical form of the city and how people connect,” said Gravel, who now develops urban design solutions for Perkins+Will Global. “We’re changing our cultural expectations. This is huge for a city generally considered the poster child for sprawl. Looking ahead, it’s a different world.” “Trails are proving as important in how we’re learning to live as the transformation of America by cars and highways was.”
Ed McBrayer, who heads the nonprofit trail-building
Jim Morrison, historic interpreter, Fort King George, Darien, GA, and Coastal Georgia Greenway Executive Director Jo Hickson during the 2014 Island Hopper Trail Tour
6 FALL 2014
AmericanTrails.org
PATH Foundation, sees young adults as Atlanta’s transform- ing agents. He cited data that the percentage of 16-to-24-year- olds who apply for driver licenses peaked in 1983 at 80 per- cent and has since fallen to 64, a timeframe in which bicycle use among the same cohort has jumped by 24 percent. McBrayer, a one-time Colorado home-builder, called bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure “as important to new generations as highways were to our generation. The suburbs are not the happening place to be anymore!”
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