[HN Gopher] The U.S. Is Building a Bike Trail That Runs Coast-to...
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The U.S. Is Building a Bike Trail That Runs Coast-to-Coast Across
12 States
Author : Xplor
Score : 187 points
Date : 2021-01-06 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ecowatch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ecowatch.com)
| carabiner wrote:
| How much of this will be on dedicated bike paths, how much is
| bike lanes on car roads? The former is way more pleasant than the
| latter.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Rails to trails are (as the name would suggest) taking unused
| railroad lines and paving them over as dedicated bike paths.
|
| They're kind of boring sometimes due to the even grading, but
| they are dedicated bike paths.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| The unpaved bits where they tore up the track but left the
| rock are 'challenging' to ride. Even for an experienced off
| road rider. The best I ever managed was about 2 miles of it.
| The paved bits you can go for a decently long time. Just be
| aware some portions are 10-20 miles with nothing really in
| between but farm fields, so plan accordingly.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I regularly bike on two of these in my are and can confirm
| that they are very boring over long distances, not to mention
| being unpaved and therefore a bit slow.
|
| Still, I'll take them over any but the most rural of roads.
| scrooched_moose wrote:
| The portion I've ridden in Iowa (Marshalltown to Woodward) was
| a mix. Roughly 50% dedicated trail, 25% on-road lanes, and 25%
| "the trail is just gone, use your GPS to find the next
| segment". It's a lot of packed gravel as well, not paved.
|
| I had no idea it was going to be part of something bigger. At
| least on that portion, it's not nearly as complete as the
| official map suggests.
| Theodores wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial
|
| This was an important prelude, cross country routes and coast
| routes too. Really neat maps and made with love, vision and a
| spirit of adventure that needs to be brought back.
|
| Note that US roads in comparison to British roads are far better
| for bicycles as the margin at the edge is like a good UK bike
| path. In western states where there is considerable distance and
| you need to put the miles in then these are good roads.
| Taikonerd wrote:
| Yes, it's cool :-). But it was already covered on HN a couple
| weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25477110
| brlewis wrote:
| This article is complementary. I particularly liked how it
| describes some other interesting rail trails around the world.
| Glawen wrote:
| It's easy to miss news on HN :)
| rektide wrote:
| Much more useful infographic in this one. :)
| Alupis wrote:
| Very cool, and something I'd love to bike on soon!
|
| There is a great bike trail near my house that runs for dozens of
| miles... unfortunately major parts of it have become scary to
| ride on due to the growing number of homeless camps that have
| spilled onto the path itself in some areas.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Seattle? Burke-Gilman Trail?
| rootsudo wrote:
| Beautiful trail, least it was summer last year. The Ballard
| to Belltown one still is nice, but, gloomy out to do it now.
| :)
| snarf21 wrote:
| I've been on that part of the trail at Jim Thorpe, so
| beautiful. We need all abandoned rail lines turned into public
| trails.
| Shivetya wrote:
| We have ninety plus miles of trails from Cobb County, suburb to
| Atlanta to Alabama named the Silver Comet Trail. We have the
| Atlanta Beltline trail system which will connect to the Silver
| Comet by some time in 2022 as well.
|
| There are obviously other major walking and riding routes based
| on rail lines that are no longer in use and it would be
| interesting to see more of them interconnected
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Comet_Trail
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine
| quaffapint wrote:
| If you simply wanna see the map of the trail...
|
| https://www.railstotrails.org/greatamericanrailtrail/route/
| gibolt wrote:
| There are a surprising number of unplanned segments.
|
| Only takes a few weak links in the chain to prevent massive
| positive infrastructure from reaching completion.
| irrational wrote:
| Wyoming and Montana seem to be the real weak links in the
| chain.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| I was curious about this as well. It looks like in some
| cases, the "trail" is the shoulder of major highways, and the
| unplanned sections don't show much promise of solutions. I
| was hoping that unplanned sections were comprised of tracks
| (decommissioned or not) and just needed a plan to move
| forward with. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case.
|
| I've watched this program for a while, but I don't know that
| much about it. I work with permitting agencies for local
| events, and I cannot fathom the scope of a project like this.
| Hopefully someone else has better insight.
| ghaff wrote:
| >the shoulder of major highways
|
| As was discussed a bit last time this story came up, one of
| the issues is that especially in the West a lot of the best
| passes through mountain ranges already have major roads
| and/or rail on them. You might have secondary forest
| roads/4WD roads and trails but those probably aren't great
| for any distance biking. So, for example, you do see
| cyclists on I think I-80 in California which goes over the
| Donner Pass.
| dboreham wrote:
| I noticed that the route runs past my place but it's one
| of those opaque squares presumably because they're not
| sure how to get over the Bozeman Pass without riding on
| I-90.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I don't think unfinished portions will have any kind of real
| negative impact(though I would love to see it fully
| connected).
|
| Who is inconvenienced if the trail is only, say, 95%
| connected?
|
| 1) Cross-country bikers. There are so few of these kinds of
| people that they aren't even really worth thinking about
| (note: I am one).
|
| 2) Local bikers who live near the unconnected portions.
| Usually the unconnected portions will be either in a)
| extremely rural areas, or b) extremely built-up areas. If
| it's (a), then there naturally aren't many bikers for that
| section anyway, since the population of the area will be low.
| And if it's (b), there will be more bikers, but also there
| will generally be alternate routes that are bikeable if you
| can't go on that exact route.
|
| So, all in all, this project is nice regardless of whether it
| is fully connected.
| bacon_waffle wrote:
| TransAmerica[1] does well enough with minimal physical
| infrastructure. I totally agree that it's nice to have a
| dedicated cycle path but it's hardly necessary for a cycle
| trail to be continuous.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAmerica_Bicycle_Trail
| choward wrote:
| That's not what most people think of when they think of a
| trail.
| bacon_waffle wrote:
| The Appalachian Trail is the grandaddy of American long
| distance walking trails, it is relatively old and was
| specifically designed to get people in to the woods -
| even it has bits of road shoulder.
|
| While there may be examples of long "trails" in the US
| that are entirely exclusive of "road", they're certainly
| not common.
| ghaff wrote:
| Basically no long distance trail is created from scratch.
| They link together existing trail networks, negotiate
| agreements with private land owners, use roads as needed,
| and sometimes just have gaps. That's the case for both
| hiking/walking and cycling (although cycling trails are
| probably much more likely to include road stretches).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| A cycle trail along 'two-lane highways' sounds frightening.
| bacon_waffle wrote:
| I found most of it to be quite pleasant, except a large
| fraction of Kentucky (and I say that as a former
| resident) due to the combination of malicious drivers and
| extremely harsh road design.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| We have one near me that connects Boulder to a nearby
| city(Longmont). I would never bike on it, but a lot of
| people do, and as far as I know there have never been any
| biker fatalities. All of the biker deaths in the past 10
| years have come from one lane roads with an unprotected
| shoulder for bikers.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but as much as I love biking, rail trails as a concept
| make me quite sad. We are looting the carcass of a better past
| economy.
| m463 wrote:
| I can think of one way to make this a net positive.
|
| They could upgrade the future by putting optical fiber into the
| roadbed and making it available at all the locations along the
| way.
| bogidon wrote:
| Indeed. There are some projects called Rail AND Trail, and imo
| this distinction should be talked about more.
|
| For example, a 32 mile old railroad in Santa Cruz, CA that is
| being revitalized for electric trains AND getting a bike path
| built alongside it: https://www.railandtrail.org/discover.html
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I've heard of these things before, but they always leave me
| confused.
|
| Common sense either you need to
|
| 1. shrink the train (and what more than "light rail" speaks
| to the pain and embarrassment that accompanies crawling back
| from automobile culture)
|
| 2. expand the right-of-way
|
| 3. commit to turning over the trail once the rail is
| reconstructed
|
| Which is it?
| pacaro wrote:
| My understanding is that the right of way for the rail is
| significantly wider than needed for the tracks alone.
|
| I live near a rail line that was converted to a multi use
| trail and as part of the conversion process there had to be
| a decision made about past encroachment onto the right of
| way -- mostly homeowners who had pushed their property
| boundaries closer to the actual rail. Looking at the
| planning maps it was surprising how wide the path is, but I
| suspect that it is to allow for the embankments and
| cuttings needed to keep a railroad level (or at least to
| keep grades within tolerance)
| [deleted]
| m463 wrote:
| pretty cool.
|
| _The Rail Trail will be within a mile of 92 parks, 44
| schools and half the county's population. In addition to the
| 32 mile Rail Trail spine, the MBSST Network Master Plan
| includes 18 miles of spur trails connecting the Rail Trail
| with other destinations._
| enkid wrote:
| This is not necessarily true. Just because we don't use as many
| miles of a particular transportation does not mean the economy
| is shrinking. Rail still makes up a huge portion of cargo
| transportation in the United States, we just don't need the
| lines that were used for last mile delivery or personal
| transportation because that gap was better filled by automotive
| and aerial transportation.
| kube-system wrote:
| Every time I ride a bike on a rail trail, I can't help but wonder
| how much safer the roads would be if freight was still being
| transported _there_ , instead of on the road. I guess it's better
| off as a trail than nothing at all, but it feels like a fresh
| coat of paint over infrastructural decay to me.
| m463 wrote:
| I think the problem with rail is economic.
|
| Market forces are much more powerful with trucking for instance
| because anyone can buy a truck and start a business. Same thing
| with container ships - buy a ship, go into business (don't know
| about port berth complications)
|
| So with rail, the rail owners get in the way. It's like if
| someone owned the roads or the ocean and worked on collecting
| rent.
|
| I wonder if there were a model where anyone could use the
| rails, like anyone can use the highway system, and then rail
| shipping/use would go up.
| hedora wrote:
| Rail works fine overseas. The US automobile industry bought
| up and intentionally destroyed our passenger rail networks.
|
| Antitrust law should have been used to prevent it, but it
| wasn't, and now the damage has been done.
| ghaff wrote:
| There is absolutely no shortage of cargo going by rail in the
| United States, which is how most non-high value long haul
| shipping is done.
| nagyf wrote:
| Curious: why only non-high value? I would think that's more
| secure than transporting on the road
| ghaff wrote:
| No idea about loss rates on rail vs. trucks. Not sure why
| containers on rail would be more secure than containers on
| trucks.
|
| But I assume most high value cargo, e.g. an iPhone, goes by
| air except locally.
| kube-system wrote:
| Of course, there is still a lot of volume going by rail (more
| than in the past, even)... but relatively speaking, air and
| truck traffic have taken over a larger share of the total.
|
| https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/freight_in_america/.
| ..
|
| It just would have been nice to see our freight needs
| prioritize safety and environmental friendliness, but we've
| prioritized speed instead.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| Definitely starting that one in Washington state, much easier to
| coast downhill than try to ride up from DC.
| pochamago wrote:
| Really glad to see it going through Iowa. RAGBRAI is such a major
| summer event already, it just makes good sense to build out more
| cycling options.
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(page generated 2021-01-06 23:01 UTC)