Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409210034
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Alan Sorensen
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But across a bridge lay the vacation's delight: Assateague, the amazing island where surf and ponies run wild and the natural habitat is federally protected from taffy vendors and miniature golf courses.
The trip's highlight? I wouldn't put it to a family referendum, for fear that watching Nickelodeon in the motel room (we don't get cable at home) might win a vote or two.
But I'd say for sure that one consensus highlight was when - helmeted and with sand in swimsuits, but otherwise unencumbered - the five of us biked Assateague along trails made for walking, looking and riding, blissfully free of auto traffic.
That was in August. So the memory was still fresh when, the other day, a couple of community-minded Roanokers dropped by to talk up the potential for bike trails, greenways and walking paths in the Roanoke Valley.
I am completely sold. I don't know the cost, of course: It has to be high. But greenways are an excellent idea, and already a proven success elsewhere. (I hear Knoxville's and Chattanooga's are impressive, for instance.)
In a place as scenic as the Roanoke Valley, greenways are a natural. I'm convinced people could rally around the idea, as they have around the Hotel Roanoke's rehab.
To define our terms: Greenways are corridors of land protected for conservation or recreation. Typically, they follow linear landscape features, such as rivers, ridgelines, waterfronts, abandoned rail lines, utility corridors, or roads.
The word, in other words, covers a range of phenomena. One reason our region seems a good fit for greenways is that two of the first and still most important American examples go through here: the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The Roanoke Valley network of greenways envisioned, at this point, by an unorganized handful of local tree-huggers, preservationists, bicyclists and other eccentrics, would certainly be modest by national standards. But it could amount to an ambitious and fruitful undertaking for our community.
The New River Valley already is developing nice trails. The Roanoke Valley has a few. But an obvious place to get serious in the Roanoke area is along the river.
Obvious enough, anyway, that it isn't a new idea. Cities across the nation have awakened to their waterfronts' potential as something other than for flooding and sewage.
The notion has been looked at in Roanoke, too. A 1989 consultant's study for the city outlined plans for "a ribbon of green" along the Roanoke River and its tributaries, a conservation-easement corridor offering flood abatement and a "recreation trail" along existing Norfolk Southern rights of way.
A 1987 study for the River Foundation (parent of Explore Park) charted options for a Roanoke River Greenway from Hardy Ford to Montgomery County, including bicycle and walking trails. (Explore, in a sense, already constitutes a three-mile greenway along the river from the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge to the upper end of Smith Mountain Lake.)
Also worth noting, for reasons other than nostalgia, is a dusty 1975 study by the Fifth Planning District Commission. It maps potential bikeways connecting Roanoke and Salem, Roanoke County and Vinton. Designated lanes, it says, would promote cycling as a way to commute to work, as well as for recreation. Too bad the study wasn't better read two decades ago.
It could, however, be updated. Now seems an excellent time to make progress on greenways and trails, in part because plans are afoot to bury new sewer lines along the Roanoke River. It it's at all feasible, the opportunity to run a trail atop the lines should not be missed.
"Everything," said Aldo Leopold, "is connected to everything else." Perhaps the challenge of developing a network of trails and greenways, and the community pride in enjoying it, could bring the valley closer together. I'd like to think so.
Then again, I may just be in a good mood left over from my vacation.
by CNB