ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290062
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
THINK SEWERS. Now picture walking or bicycling along a well-laid trail beside a river, the sound of flowing water gradually blotting out the city noises that intrude on quiet communion with nature and healthy recreation with neighbors.
There is a connection. Or there could be, if the Roanoke Valley has the foresight to extend a greenway along the Roanoke River. Local officials need to move quickly, though, to exploit a short-term opportunity to include trail development in the planning and design work for upgrading sewer-interceptor lines along the Roanoke River and Tinker Creek.
The Roanoke Valley Greenways/ Open Space Steering Committee, a regional task force of municipal planners and greenway advocates, is scheduled to go before Roanoke City Council Monday in pursuit of that connection. Committee members hope the sewer project will be handled in a way that would ease creation of greenways in the future - where there is no money to build them now, but where residents would like to have them, sooner rather than later.
More than the greenways committee should hope for this. By looking ahead, the city could help facilitate trails development. It might try, for example, to negotiate the type of easements that allow recreational uses when talking to property owners about acquiring sewer-easement rights.
It might also lay the sewer line with trails in mind. Not just the pipes' path is at issue. Ground that has to be dug up can be restored in ways more or less amenable for greenways. Let's make it more. Since the river bank will be torn up anyway, incorporating greenways planning now makes more sense, and would cost less, than doing it a few years from now.
Tying together the planning for the two projects is a natural because, like water lines, sewer lines often are found along streams and rivers, ideal corridors for greenways.
The benefits of such green corridors go beyond obvious recreational uses such as hiking and biking, and less obvious transportation uses, such as commuting to work and tying together neighborhoods and parks. If undeveloped land along the major streams can be preserved, some of the bad effects of building on flood plains - such as poor water quality and flooding - could be mitigated. In their natural condition, the topography and flora of stream and river banks filter impurities and slow stormwater.
Indeed, all the valley's localities have an interest in seeing the sewer and greenway planning linked. The city is designing the sewer line, but the project is regional. So are plans for an eventual network of trails. Progress on the river front would complement, rather than interfere with, the regional greenway committee's initial proposal for a trail from downtown Roanoke over Mill Mountain to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Roanoke City Council showed leadership when it kicked in money so the committee could start its work. Council could further the cause now by taking the committee's advice on the sewer project. Because that project is proceeding with all due speed, council - if it chooses to intervene - would need to do so swiftly.
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