
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 27, 1994                   TAG: 9501190003
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HUCKLEBERRY TRAIL MAKING PROGRESS ON PAPER

A couple of weeks ago some copy editors and layout artists were joking about the stories we've covered most frequently this year. Were we to put them all together, they decided, the hybrid headline would read something like this: "Huckleberry Trail connects 'Smart Road' with new Wal-Mart."

No question, we've read a lot about these projects. But despite our reading, we may miss some of the finer points. Among them, the fact that the Huckleberry Trail, which will improve the quality of life in the New River Valley, is plugging along. Its progress this year was not physical, but on paper and in the minds of those who have been doing the legwork to make sure that your legs will have a place to walk and run no matter how many superstores open up here.

So brace yourself, and welcome to the Huckleberry Trail 101 where you will learn that the trail, while not venturing into smart road territory, may actually go through the Wal-Mart domain when completed - as our headline jokingly predicted. And make no mistake - it will be completed. Just not necessarily as soon as its proponents had hoped.

Enter government bureaucracy, brought to you by the same folks who gave you the long form and $400 toilet seats.

"We're slow, because of the additional regulations we've found out we need to comply with," said Bill Ellenbogen, the man you should meet for a cup of coffee if you're ever looking for a little education on the trail.

The grant that governs the development of this trail is made up of federal money doled out by the state through the Department of Transportation. Because the Huckleberry was one of the first to receive the grant, organizers weren't sure whose regulations - state or federal - they had to follow. "Unfortunately," said Ellenbogen, who was, incidentally, written in on one New River Valley ballot for the U.S. Senate seat, "we found out we had to deal with all of them."

So that's what the trail organizers have been doing this year. Rather than spending dollars constructing the trail, they've been dishing out private money for the necessary surveys and assessments, and waiting for the government money to get things started. That should be soon, said Ellenbogen, who expects to clear the last of the bureaucratic hurdles in December or January.

Soon, too, the organizers will come up with a new cost estimate to cover the unexpected regulations that require the trail to be handicapped accessible and kind to endangered species it may encounter along its winding route. Then they'll apply for a supplemental grant from the same folks who gave them the first one, and the project will go out to bid.

They'll still need local matching dollars, and all the public and private support they can get. It's a good way to have a direct impact on the landscape.

Then, we can all take advantage of a foot and bike path that can get us from Blacksburg to Christiansburg without setting toe or tire on U.S. 460.

It's nice to have the option. I'm not promising that I'll ride my bike, which, I swear, is at the front of my storage shed and not the back, to work every day. But I might try it once. And I'm sure other people, who, say, keep their bikes in a place of honor in the living room, would use it frequently.

There's something, too, to just knowing there's a preserved chunk of history - and green space - running between the two towns.

"This area is rapidly growing and if we don't preserve some portion through greenways, bikeways and parks in general, we will end up with urban sprawl," Ellenbogen said, making it sound like something akin to shingles or rickets. And for those of us that have come to love this valley, it is.

by CNB