Beating the Drum for Connecting Our Trails
In case you haven’t noticed, Richmond has all the potential to be a great bike town. The ground work is laid. There have been studies such as the Richmond Green Infrastructure Assessment which show us exactly how close we are to having a fully connected system of trails. The Mayor even talks a good game with the goals that he has outlined with the forming of the Pedestrian, Bicycling and Trails Planning Commission. It does seem, however that we are a ways off from achieving the goal of “great bike town”.
James River News Hub and Richmond.com (both articles written by Phil Riggan) take a look at a couple of those gaps. The Crooked Branch Ravine which is located in Westover Hills Northrup/Forest Hill Terrace Neighborhood would hook up the greenways and Forest Hill Park. Crooked Branch Ravine is also a good example of measures that can be taken to improve runoff into the Reedy Creek watershed. Another piece in the missing trail puzzle is the proposed James River Branch Rail-Trail, the rail-to-trail project connecting 49th Street near George Wythe High School eastward to Cofer Road. The James River Branch Rail-Trail would be a great step in the right direction. That step isn’t going to happen without a lot of work from everyone involved most significantly CSX. From the Richmond.com article;
“Trail development takes a long time and people generally aren’t aware of how long it takes,” Wampler said. The James River Branch Rail-Trail project has been in the planning stages since at least January 2009.
At least two years and counting. That may seem like a long time to wait for a linear trail to be built, but there are many complicated steps to converting land from useless to multi-use.
The biggest roadblock for this project is that the land belongs to CSX Corporation, but the railroad giant has not been in a generous mood. It has been proposed that CSX could donate the land and get a tax break. Wampler said that would be nice, but “typically with linear parks, there isn’t much acreage to make a big difference” economically for the donating party.
So for now a roughly 2.5 mile stretch of potential multi-use trail that could help push our city in the right direction will remain overgrown and increasingly a dumping ground.
Thanks Richard for bringing this up again. I had ridden this “trail” (it’s an abandoned railroad line/spur for the most part, and a bum hangout in areas) back in 2009. Maybe someone here can explain to me but why, when most of the railroad land in the US was ceeded by the government to the railroads, can’t we just use eminent domain to re-claim lands that aren’t even being used? I’m all for compensating CSX somehow as nothing is valueless but I don’t see why we have to wait for them to be generous in this instance when this area is unused and blighted in spots? Any insight anyone?
While I do support this effort, I would note this is not actually in the Westover Hills Neighborhood. It is actually closer to the Forest Hill Neighborhood, but I am not eve sure they go over that far.
Good point whr, I had my the streets misplace in my mental map. I think technically it is the Northrup or Forest Hill Terrace neighborhood.