Winding their way through landscapes urban and rural, trails are an ever-welcome sight to those seeking solace from the bustle of everyday life, or an alternative way to access work, school, or other community destinations. By foot, bicycle, blade, or board, a world of discovery awaits those who choose the path, and it’s not just pretty landscapes and fresh air that they find.
That is, in part, why state Departments of Transportation are not just funding vehicle roadway projects but have enhanced funding to study, plan, and develop active transportation infrastructure. The overarching goal of these efforts is to connect communities through or around existing infrastructure, geographic barriers, new roadways, transit, or large site developments to enhance the quality of life for residents.
Projects like these include:
Trail systems
Wider and better sidewalks
Bike lanes
Pedestrian tunnels
Bridges
Having played a role in the planning, design, and construction management of hundreds of multimodal projects across the western United States, we relish any opportunity to support these important initiatives. Complementing our engineering work, we offer extensive Public Engagement services, an element that is vital in trail projects, particularly. There is often concern from residents that trails might bring new, unwanted elements to a community. Citizens show support for trail projects when voting, but don't always want them located next to their homes—a concept known as 'NIMBY' (not in my backyard).
To alleviate these concerns and highlight the numerous benefits that trails provide, we collected some industry research, which reaffirmed just how extensive the advantages of trail systems are for the communities we serve.
Physical and Mental Health
Not surprisingly, the most apparent benefit is that trails encourage physical activity, which in turn promotes physical and mental health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that frequenting trails can lower stress and reduce feelings of anger and depression, while at the same time boosting positive attributes such as attention, focus, and an overall sense of well-being.
Inclusion and Belonging
Trails provide a safe and enjoyable forum for people to interact, strengthening social and familial ties and contributing to a sense of community. They can also contribute to one's sense of belonging in a particular place of neighborhood. Academic research supported by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources recently identified a correlation between greenspace design/management, and a personal feeling of inclusion and security.
Trails can be very grounding, which can evoke feelings of harmony and amicability—both highly desirable features of a community, and certainly desirable qualities in one's life.
Safety
Green and open spaces such as trails also make communities safer and more attractive, with the added benefit of offering multiple transportation options and enhanced connectivity without the need to rely on roads. Separating faster moving vehicles from pedestrians, bicyclists, ATV, and slow-moving equipment users is ideal and can provide safer, more secure routes in urban and rural settings. These separated pathways are also great places for kids and novice riders to learn and practice without the presence of traffic.
Economic Enhancement
Socioeconomic research consistently finds a predictive relationship between public amenities (e.g., trails, parks, and community assets) and economic success. This means that areas where community assets are abundant, tend to have higher economic performance and more satisfied residents than places without amenities. These benefits translate firmly to property values, where close access to trails tends to boost home prices. The Rails to Trails Conservancy (RTC) further explores this concept. In most cases, it appears that where trails go, economic prosperity follows.
Economic Growth
Trail systems are also great economic development tools, boosting local economies by increasing tax revenue and attracting visitors who patronize local businesses. Few destinations have come to appreciate this fact more fully - or more rapidly - than Moab, UT, which hosts and annual 1.8 million visitors to Arches National Park, alongside nearly half a million visitors to Canyonlands National Park. Utah is well-known for its diverse tourism offerings, but they are only partially driven by its national parks.
In the case of Moab, increased visitation in recent decades is largely due to Grand County's ever-growing extensive network of trails. The area is, after all, “A Mecca for Mountain Bikers,” according to The New York Times. The Grand County Office of Economic Development reports that the sum of the area’s visitorship translates to more than $200M in annual revenue, which the county relies on heavily, as does its local businesses and residents.
In recent years, Horrocks has played a substantial role in the area’s growth by working with Grand County on several major trail projects, including the award-winning Lions park Transit Hub and Colorado River Trail System (Best Project and ACEC Engineering Excellence Grand Award). The trail network features cantilevered bridge sections to minimize impact to the riverbank and is crowned by a stunning pedestrian bridge, spanning the Colorado River. These trail projects spurred jobs in construction, boosted sales and rentals of bikes in the area, and spiked activity in the hospitality sector such as lodging, restaurants and retail outlets.
Crime Mitigation
From a criminology perspective, studies have found that trails often serve as safe havens and may, in effect, reduce crime in nearby areas. A study conducted by the RTC found that of 372 urban-based trails in a sample survey set, just 3% had been associated with a major crime. A more focused RTC study found that converting abandoned rail corridors into trails can reduce crime by attracting active people to the area, discouraging vagrancy, and giving a new tone to the landscape. This type of gentrification mitigates crime and violence by supplanting new, healthy uses for open areas.
Air Quality
From an environmental perspective, trails can significantly reduce air pollution by providing alternate methods of travel, potentially decreasing the number of cars on the road. Straightforward enough, but the U.S. Department of Transportation elaborates, noting that reduced air pollution can have positive, larger-scale impacts on an area’s overall climate and ecological conditions.
Protecting Wildlife
Trails can serve as critical ecological connections and movement corridors for other specie. Horrocks has planned and designed numerous animal crossings in several western states, enhancing habitat connectivity for deer, elk, wild horses, and other migrating animals. In addition to accommodating animal needs, these projects serve as major safety enhancements for drivers, who face the unpredictable risk of animal collisions at high speeds. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, an estimated 1 million wildlife-vehicle collisions occur every year. These collisions cost approximately $8 billion annually, and cause tens of thousands of injuries as well as fatalities.
Trail initiatives and all we gain from them are due primarily to the efforts of local, state, and federal governments who recognize their value and work to steer funding to them. This support is critical as cities and states continuously manage growth, needing solutions for new, active transportation methods. These needs fall atop traditional roadway maintenance and expansion efforts which are ongoing, so the added focus given to trails in recent years lends credence to their importance in an area’s overall transportation plan. The enhanced quality of life they bring to an area is undeniably clear.
Funding for trail initiatives can happen in many ways, often with the help of interagency divisions such as the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). In the period between 1993 and 2020, the FHWA allocated nearly $1.5 billion – with a matching $1.1 billion – to trail projects as part of the Recreational Trails Program (RTP). Other pathways of support include multiagency partnerships, coalitions of public and private entities, and so on. In the end, all projects require some support from their impacted DOTs, whose efforts we applaud as these agencies continue to make trails a priority.
What else, then, can be said about trails? Adding to the multitude of benefits they bring to us and our communities, we lastly add: they’re simply fun places to be and to explore. They provide tranquil, quiet spaces where we can reconnect to nature, to each other, and to ourselves. They stir meditative and inspirational thoughts and give us the time and the space to pursue them—what could be more beneficial than that?
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