From Rails to Trails

<p>If as Wallace Stegner said the national park is the best idea we ever had the rail-trail is certainly a close runner-up. Part transportation corridor part park the rail-trail has revolutionized the way America creates high-quality car-free pathways for bicyclists runners walkers equestrians and more.</p><p>It was only a few decades after railroad barons had run roughshod over America's economy and politics that they began to shed nearly one hundred thousand miles of unneeded railroad corridor. At the same time bicyclists were being so thoroughly pushed off ever-more-intimidating roadways they came close to extinction. Through political organizing and lawyerly grit an unlikely formerly marginalized advocacy arose seized on seemingly worthless strips of land and created a resource that is treasured by millions of Americans today for recreation purposeful travel tourism conservation and historical interpretation.</p><p><em>From Rails to Trails</em> is the fascinating tale of the rails-to-trails movement as well as a consideration of what the continued creation of rail-trails means for the future of Americans' health nonmotorized transportation networks and communities across the country.</p><p></p><p><strong>Peter Harnik </strong>is cofounder of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and founder of the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land. He is the author of <em>Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities</em> and <em>Inside City Parks</em> as well as a former editor of both <em>Environmental Action</em> magazine and <em>Trailblazer</em> quarterly.</p><p> </p>