To better advocate for the kind of walking and biking infrastructure it wants to see in a regional trail network, the Capital Trails Coalition has set out to define the components of a high-quality trail.
Bryan Barnett-Woods reports on an effort by the Capital Trails Coalition to identify and adopt consistent criteria for the evaluation of trails in the D.C. region.
"When the understanding of what a trail is varies, it's hard to create a true regional network that people of all abilities are comfortable using," explains Barnett-Woods of the problem facing active transportation advocates in the region. To better promote the creation of a regional network of trails, Capital Trails Coalition first laid out criteria for the components of a high-quality trail.
Barnett-Woods list the criteria, with more detail in the article to describe each point:
- Be separate from automobiles
- Be wide
- Have paved or hard surfaces
- Connect to other trails or destinations
- Accommodate both transportation and recreation
- Be a project that’s realistic to build now or sometime soon
- Follow uniform design standards
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research