The new East Coast Greenway newsletter is out. There's quite a bit of local news within it, though most of it is a little far from home.
North of Baltimore, the North Central Rail Trail at Gunpowder Falls State Park in Baltimore County will be renamed the Torrey C. Brown Rail Trail.
Brown was the major driving force in developing the abandoned Northern Central Railroad as the state’s first multi-use recreational trail.
Construction on Phase II of the Jones Falls Trail in Baltimore is supposed to start later this year and has already started on Phase III. Work has also begun on the Belle Grove Road sidepath that will serve as part of the connection between the BWI Trail and the Gwynn Falls Trail. These Gwynn and Jones Falls trails will eventually be connected as well.
On the B&A trail
Construction has begun on a trailhead at Jonas Green Park at Annapolis. This trailhead will not only provide a relaxing riverfront rest stop for ECG users, but will serve as the official "intersection" of the ECG and the American Discovery Trail, which stretches coast-to-coast from Delaware to California.
Closer to home, there's also been progress on the WB&A trail
The bridges are in! This significant milestone has been reached on the Anne Arundel County section of the WB&A Trail. Although trail completion awaits suitable weather for laying asphalt, mountain bikers are already using this newest section of the ECG. The Maryland Department of Transportation is coordinating efforts to complete the trail and install a bridge to connect to the largely complete Prince George's County section of the WB&A Trail.
The bridges are part of Phase II of this project in AA county, which will push the trail south of Strawberry Lane to the Patuxent.
Into Virginia,
ECGA Trustee David Brickely was recently named Volunteer of the Year by the Potomac Heritage Trail Association for advancing the Dahlgren Heritage Rail Trail.
And south of Richmond a project linking Petersburg, Virginia to the North Carolina line has been proposed
In a December 2006 meeting, members of the ECGA and the Virginia Department of Conservation met in Richmond, Virginia with representatives of the Southeast High Speed Rail Project to urge that the planned Tier II Environmental Impact Statement include an adjacent, parallel, and separate multi-use trail to the ongoing Southeast High Speed Rail Project work.
The newsletter provided a link to the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership which has three useful documents
The Guidebook -- A Guide to Transportation Opportunities in Your Community -- reviews how federal surface transportation law can be used to support local and statewide efforts to build more livable communities and expand travel options. The Workshop Report -- Using the Federal Transportation Law to Meeting the Mobility Needs of Your Community: Report on Workshop Discssions, Findings and Next Steps -- describes key findings from the STPP Partners workshop series, which were held in seven locations from January - June 2006. The State Spending Tables were prepared for each of the workshops, providing a state-by-state review of spending by federal highway program category for FYs '92-'05.
A link to this article...
A household with two cars that swaps one vehicle for public transportation for daily commutes would save about $6,200 a year even after paying transit fares, according to a study released by the nonprofit American Public Transportation Association.
This one about how homes near rail trails are selling
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