Let’s get a few things out of the way for starters– first, contrary to the Globe’s spin, Rail Trails are not just bicycle paths. They have many uses, including jogging, roller-blading, cross-country skiing, walking, pushing a baby stroller and hanging out. If you doubt this, take a walk on the Minuteman on a sunny afternoon.
This post, based on my previous Daily Kos diary on the subject, reviews arguments for and against Rail Trails.
Reducing Fossil Fuel usage: For me, this is one of the strongest arguments for Rail Trails. Anyone who is walking, bicycling, etc is not driving their car. Some Rail Trails can be used for commuting, which can lead to a lot fewer cars on the road. Rail Trails are less dangerous to bicycle along than roads, and tend to be straight and well-routed (being former rail-road routes).
Even when Rail Trails are used for recreation, it is a carbon-free form of recreation. I have been told (but do not have a link) that studies show that most people who use Rail Trails live within 2 miles of one, which indicates that people won’t drive far to get to one.
Supplement to public transportation: Having a Rail Trail go to a public transportation station expands the number of people who can use that station (especially without driving). And it is a lot cheaper to build a Rail Trail than a road or a subway. Commuters may also choose to buy a folding bicycle (which costs roughly the same as driving 5 miles per day each way for 3 to 6 months); these can be brought on many forms of public transportation, and then ridden along a Rail Trail without fighting traffic.
Public Health: As we know, the country is in the midst of an obesity crisis, largely due to lack of exercise. According to this article, one RAND study found that “Other risk factors aside, people in densely populated places graced with sidewalks and shops had the lowest rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke. And the rates rose steadily as communities became more spread-out and less walkable.” Its generally much easier to build a Rail Trail than to redesign an entire city or town. And people who live near Rail Trails tend to use them, for walking, jogging, etc. This promotes health a lot more than, say, watching TV.
Community: Parks promote community simply by providing gathering places for neighbors to congregate; Rail Trails, a linear park, can do much the same. They offer a place for senior citizens to walk together, kids to learn to bike, parents to push babies in jogging strollers. Such places are increasingly absent from our mall-filled lives.
They sound great. What’s not to like?
Despite the many advantages of Rail Trails, opposition to building them can be intense, as the Globe Article notes. Almost always, the strongest opponents are abutters of the trail (however, it is usually not true that most abutters are opponents). The typical pattern, seen in one Rail Trail after another, is that a core group of abutters vehemently opposes a trail before it is built, but gradually grows to like it after it is built.
Here are a few common objections to Rail Trails.
Property values: A Google search reveals numerous studies on the effect of Rail Trails on property values of abutters (e.g., this one). Most studies show that Rail Trails slightly increase the value of abutting properties, while a few show they have no affect. Virtually none show they have a negative affect.
Crime: It is sometimes claimed that Rail Trails will lead to increased crime. This assertion appears to be evidence-free. As one local Rail Trail FAQ notes:
There is no evidence that rail-trails cause an increase in crime. In fact, trail development may actually decrease the risk of crime in comparison to an abandoned and undeveloped rail corridor. And, several studies show that people prefer living along a rail-trail rather than an abandoned corridor. Typically, lawful trail users serve as eyes and ears for the community.
Local Environmental Issues: An old abandoned railway line can often harbor unusual species. A Rail Trail might disturb this (although a heckuva lot less than the old Railway did). For that reason, they may sometimes be opposed by people who consider themselves environmentalists. (Incidentally, I’ve poked around on the web site of groups like the Sierra Club, and every mention I’ve seen to Rail Trails appears to be highly favorable.)
Personally, I find this amazing. It is one of the only examples I am aware of where “environmentalists” oppose a something that reduces carbon emissions. (This is especially difficult to understand since Climate Scientists have been saying for years that Global Warming will lead to mass extinction.)
Conclusion
Rail trails provide many advantages at the local and state level, including reducing fossil fuel usage, enhancing public transportation, promoting public health and combating obesity, letting people get outdoors to enjoy nature, and promoting community.
It is gratifying to read that the state is encouraging their construction with both moral support and real money. Although the push for Rail Trails comes from citizens’ groups, local government, and many different state-government agencies, a build-out of rail trails could one day be seen as a lasting legacy of the Patrick Administration.
and I know there’s a chunk of folks who work out in Arlington/Lexington who use the Minuteman to get there from Alewife. I’m sure there’s also the reverse, although I don’t know of anyone personally.
<
p>
It’s just one more transportation choice, and one that requires very few dollars in acquisition, construction, or maintenance. Linking them together — and linking them to public transit and shopping areas is a big help too.
<
p>
And please, if you’re using one and on foot, do be cognizant of walking two or more abreast — it can make things very difficult for cyclists. Keep your ears open for “on your left” [move RIGHT] and try not to stop and chat on the trail, instead stepping on to the grass to keep the lanes clear.
I got taken out once while rollerblading by some idiot dad who was riding in the wrong lane and looking at his kid in a biketrailer behind his wife’s bike instead of looking where he was going.
<
p>
Really, everyone should watch where they are going on any public road, path or sidewalk, regardless of their mode of transport.
Treat it like a road. If you’re traveling, do so in the correct direction/lane, and speeds that allow safe stopping and avoiding. If you’re not traveling, get off the road. Always make sure you’re visible, with reflectors, lights, bright clothing, or any other necessary techniques.
As Ian Bowles said in the Globe, these are tremendous bangs for your buck as a recreation buy. Multiuse paths are amazingly popular. So this sounds like a cheap way to do something in the parks line. That’s a smart move, but I wonder if this is going to be the sum total of new DCR spending for this administration.
<
p>
Until now, there has been very little will to spend the money on bike paths or work through the public process to site them. There is federal money for bike trails, but Massachusetts sends most of it back to Washington each year.
<
p>
Part of the problem is that the federal funds must have a transportation purpose and paths are, whatever advocates might like to say, primarily recreational. So one trick is for planners to meld the two missions.
<
p>
Then there are NIMBY abutters. What no one likes to say is that much of the opposition from abutters comes from those who have unofficially taken over the public lands that the paths would go on. They’ve incorporated them into their yards and in some cases even built on them.
<
p>
I actually have some sympathy–any change is hard–but at the end of the day the public good ought to win out. The Cambridge-Westford trail has been blocked by folks in Weston who don’t want to see folks on bicycles in their back yards. Unfortunately, a network is only as good as its weakest link
<
p>
Can you imagine how this would play out if the state wanted to build a road on land it already had rights to–I mean, no takings required or anything? They’d pave it in a heartbeat, because cars, you know, matter.
<
p>
Unlike chapter1, though, I think that trails ought to be subject to normal environmental review.
It certainly is frustrating that Weston managed to block that whole trail.
<
p>
A question and a clarification:
<
p>
<
p>
Could you elaborate? I’m not aware of this.
<
p>
I didn’t mean to imply that trails should avoid normal environmental review. I do mean to imply that the global-environmental effects (reduction of fossil fuel usage) need to be taken into account as well as the local ones.
<
p>
Also– and this goes way beyond bike trails– I think most environmental reviews are much too focussed on the effect projects will have on endangered species. That might have been appropriate 20, even five years ago, but it isn’t any more.
<
p>
Within the last few years, it has become clear that 30% of all species are going to go extinct this century due to global warming– if we clean up our act. If we continue on our present path, up to 50% of species will go extinct.
<
p>
Almost by definition, the rare, endangered species will be among the first to go extinct– no matter what we do.
<
p>
I think that should be taken into account on all environmental impact assessments.
The funds are TEA-21, “Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century,” funds (formerly ISTEA, “Transportation Enhancement Activities.” There is a good general description of this funding and related issues here.
<
p>
This may not be completely up to date, but basically these paths are rarely if ever built with purely local funds. Certainly not in Massachusetts.
<
p>
The source for my assertion that we currently return most of the TEA monies available to us is a presentation at a meeting of path advocates and supporters that I attended about four years ago.
<
p>
The presenter said Mass. sent back more than 80 percent of funds and that this was more than most states. But, I can’t back that up or provide more recent information.
<
p>
Bowles’s remarks in the Globe make me hopeful that this will change. It really takes leadership to move something like this past the usual obstacles.
I believe that the federal funds that can be used for bike trails are under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ)improvement program. But these funds can also be used to expand park and ride lots, commuter rail parking lots, signilzation improvements, etc.
<
p>
I think that the larger issue here is “Are we applying a cost benefit or any type of useful analysis to our capital program?” Then the common sense of these types of decisions would be apparent. In certain areas bike trails will help reduce congestion and provide recreational use while somewhere else additional commuter rail parking is the answer.
<
p>
The more rail-trails that interconnect, as well as have connections to work centers, shopping areas, and other transit hubs, the more people will use them for transportation.
<
p>
A trail that doesn’t “go anywhere” won’t have many folks using it for transit.
<
p>
On a side note, if someone hops in his car, drives 2 miles, buys a slurpie, drinks it, and drives 2 miles home, the road was for transportation, right? If I hop on my bike, ride up a trail 5 miles to Arlington, buy a water at the store, drink it, and ride 5 miles home, was that transportation or recreation? đŸ™‚
You know, I don’t want to hear another peep from progressives about funding our crumbing roads and bridges, or increasing state welfare checks to towns and cities. Only progressives would attempt to advocate state-financed bike paths during a fiscal crisis.
<
p>
(I’ll leave untouched for now the absurd arguments in support of rail trails, the biggest whopper of them being “Supplement to public transportation.” Yes, I’m sure there are many commuters taking the Blackstone River Bikeway to work.)
<
p>
I’m not against bike paths per se, but given the fiscal challenges in towns and cities throughout the Commomwealth, bike paths are a luxury which should be deferred.
<
p>
Here’s a sampler. I’m sure there are many more:
<
p>
<
p>
Just these 5 items … is this the best use for $10,000,000 right now?
$10 mil to provide * recreation for adults and kids * transportation options for those who can drive and for those who can’t * public health benefits for all segments of society
and all of these things without increasing pollution a whit.
<
p>
If your complaint is that there aren’t enough of these benefits, well then I’d say we ought to build more trails.
<
p>
And for the record, I have used rail-trails to get to work, and could name 25 other people I know personally off the top of my head who do the same.
At least quote him.
but last time I did that, the facts presented by Carr were dismissed by BMG bloggers simply because they were from a Howie Carr article. “They must be false,” was the retort.
<
p>
I have the same problem here at BMG when sourcing from the WSJ or even using data from the WSJ. Let alone Fox.
<
p>
So I excerpted them. But you’re right, I should have at least attributed them to Carr’s article.
…as far as we can tell, he’s merely playing a character directed to a particular audience on his radio show. But his columns seem to be fairly reliable.
<
p>
Regarding the WSJ, their news reporting seems to be fairly reliable, although I don’t know why anyone would pay for it, since it’s all available for free from other sources over the Internet. It’s their idiotorial pages that are–how shall I put it?–stupid. As is their non-subscription OpinionJournal.com website, which is merely an extention of their idiotorial pages.
<
p>
Regarding Faux News, no, they are not reliable. In March 2001, I was at the gym changing room early one morning. The gym had TVs in the changing room, tuned to Faux News. This was during the time that the Chinese had forced down a US surveillance plane–remember that incident? Faux News seemed to be continually broadcasting pictures of the plane on the tarmac, with commentary by their “reporters.” At one point a commentator–sorry, “reporter”–stated essentially that they had no idea what was going on, but that they were going to continue “covering”–i.e., blathering about–the story anyway. After I got myself off the floor, having been laughing, I went to do my workout. And I’ve never paid any attention to Faux since.
One thing left out of the post is the fact that these abandoned rights of way might be better used for the purpose for which they were originally conceived, i.e. rail transportation, more specifically, public transportation.
There’s a number of reasons why most of the rights of way being considered for rail trails are unlikely candidates for commuter rail lines.
1. Many of them are spur lines which were built to run freight to 19th century industrial areas which no longer exist.
2. In the mid-19th century, railroads were built by private competing companies; in many places- particularly Middlesex County- there was a duplication of rail service, and a surplus of rail lines. Even at the height of passenger rail usage- pre-1930, most of those duplicate passenger lines were already out of business.
3. As far as commuter rail is concerned, it is more cost effective to have a moderate number of large stations on “main lines” than it is to have a plethora of small stations on main lines and branch lines. Prior to the automobile or busses, it made some sense to have a train station in every village; but now, most people in the areas served by commuter rail, are within a five minute drive to a commuter rail station. Resurrecting some of the small branch railroads to put stations closer together would do little to increase ridership and just increase maintanence costs.
Consiter the Minuteman bikepath in Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford. This used to be a commuter railroad with service to south station, through three prime commuter towns that are currently without any kind of public transit service save buses.
<
p>
While I agree that small rail spurs used for freight delivery, like the abandoned Riverside-Wellesely lower falls spur in Newton, ought to be made into rail trails, we don’t have enough rail lines going in and out of Boston to serve the region’s needs. Example : The MBTA’s Framingham/Worcester line is the most consistantly late of all the commuter rail lines, mainly because it has to share the rails with CSX, the freight rail company that still owns most of the tracks along the route, and with Amtrak. However, before the construction of the Turnpike extention into Boston in the 1960s, the F-W line had FOUR lanes of rail, not two: two lanes for commuter service (one each way), and two more for intercity passenger and freight service (one each way). Now, there are simply too many trains competing for the same track space, a railroad traffic jam, I suppose.
<
p>
The most responsible thing for state government to do would be to find a way to increase both the capacity of our rail trails AND our railways in the Boston area, since they both need it so badly.
that the success of the Minuteman Path rests, regrettably, on the success of parochial opposition to extending the Red Line out to 128 along that same right of way.
try rebuilding a railway. You have all the same issues– environmental concerns, hoi-polloi coming from out of town, abutters not wanting to give up land they’ve encroached on, plus additional ones (noise, abutters worried about physical danger to kids, etc.)
<
p>
Building a railway in places like this just isn’t politically feasible. Perhaps it should be, but it doesn’t seem to be.
<
p>
Actually, there needn’t be a conflict. Some of the right-of-ways are big enough to support BOTH a rail trail and a rail way (or something similar).
<
p>
Some proposals have also been floated to build a dedicated road for buses along old rail routes (as is common in Europe). This has also been shot down by abutters/towns.
“Building a railway in places like this just isn’t politically feasible. Perhaps it should be, but it doesn’t seem to be.”
<
p>
C’mon, haven’t you seen the whirlwind of news coverage about the re-opening of the MBTA Commuter Rail’s Greenbush line this month, after the right-of-way had been abandoned for 48 years?
<
p>
All the obsticles you listed, which you’re right to say are difficult ones to work through, have been successfully cleared as part of the Greenbush project. In fact, I think the Greenbush rail line is in many ways representative of what’s happened to transit in our part of the state as a whole over the past half-century: After a hundred years of providing commuter service from Scituate to Boston, the Greenbush branch closed in 1959, unable to compete with the lure of driving, which became a viable alternative with the costruction of Route 3 in the immideate postwar era. However, as the suburbs grew, traffic on Rte. 3 became unbareable. The highway is now no longer the best way to get into the city. Hence, the renewed viability of the commuter railroad.
<
p>
This dynamic has played out all over our region. It’s not just I-93/Rte. 3 that are unpassablen now, it’s I-93 north of the city, and I-90 going west. That’s why there’s all this talk about extending the Lowell line of the CR to Nashua, NH; studies have shown that, because of the extent of traffic problems in the region, this option would be vialble in terms of ridership.
<
p>
Because of the ever-increasing population density of Eastern MA/Southern NH/RI, commuter rail is making a comeback.
<
p>
I’m all for rail trails, believe me. Every argument made for them in your post was right on the money. My only hope is, if Deval does move forward with this aggressive plan to build more rail trails in our state, which I think he should, we should be very careful not to build them on old railways that we may need to re-activate in the near future.
..and you do make many good points.
<
p>
But in some areas of the state– particularly the western suburbs– the opposition to railways is so intense… and the towns are so well-connected politically.
<
p>
I certainly agree on the importance of railways. My dream would be to run them on the highway Right-of-ways. My understanding (may be wrong) is that several major highway ROWs (128/Pike, etc) are much wider than is currently used.
First, climate change and carbon emissions are not the end all be all of environmental concerns. It’s not some magic trump card that makes all other environmental concerns obsolete. It is one of many concerns that environmentalists have. (And I will leave aside any discussion on climate change since that is not the intent of your post.) What is this “my environmentalism is better then yours” attitude you have? Why would you put in quotes environmentalists in your post? Are you somehow suggesting that people with these concerns are not real environmentalists unless they are only concerned with climate change?
<
p>
Second, the idea of disturbing critical habitats along the old rail beds is real. I work as an environmental consultant on these exact issues. The wetlands along these rail beds are usually man made or at least man altered when the rail lines were constructed but they now serve as critical habitats. Often protected species can be found in these areas. Disturbing or destroying these habitats can be devastating to local species.
<
p>
MassGIS has all kinds of tools that let you see what is in the area that is of environmental concern. In the area of the proposed extension of the Bruce Freeman trail in Chelmsford there are at least four Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program listed habitats of rare wildlife and priority habitats of rare species.
<
p>
Now while there are steps that can be taken to minimize the damage to these areas, they are not full proof and are not 100% affective. There will be some adverse impacts to these habitats.
<
p>
I’m going to risk setting my own post off on a tangent, but I think there’s an important misconception that needs to be cleared up.
<
p>
If James Hansen is correct, then under a business-as-usual scenario, 50% of all species are going to go extinct this century due to global warming.
<
p>
Let me repeat that. 50% of all species.
<
p>
Under an alternative scenario, with an appropriate response, “only” 10% will.
<
p>
Of course, Hansen (like most other climate scientists) has a long track record of being overly optimistic.
<
p>
So the difference between these two scenarios is 40% of all species now living on the planet (with many shades of gray in between).
<
p>
Yes, there are many, many other legitimate environmental concerns. And if they come into conflict, we do have to weigh the loss of small areas of habitat vs small reductions in emissions. And certainly, all things being equal, we want to minimize both.
<
p>
But just be aware that the stakes of global warming are much higher than many people realize.
Many other climate scientists don’t believe the IPCC on climate change and think that politics have tainted the IPCC work, both over estimating some effects while underestimating others, to the point that it can not be relied on.
<
p>
By the way, you are not clearly examining the sources you are using. You are relying on James Hansen’s prediction that 50% of all species are going to be extinct due to climate change as justification for the rail trail based on the reduction in carbon emissions. Well, James Hansen does not believe that carbon emissions are primarily responsible for climate change. Although he does feel that this could shift in the future and CO2 could become the driving force.
<
p>
So you are picking and choosing what info you take from your sources and that leads to confirmation bias and false logic.
<
p>
As for the 50% extinction claim and the relationship to the species in the habitats to be affected by the rail trail. There is none. They are separate and distinct issues and you are only doing your argument a disservice by combining them.
Citing a seven-year old paper to make a claim about what Hansen argues today?! Why not cite something from a few months ago, like
<
p>
<
p>
Or just Google for a few minutes and find a lot more of Hansen arguing that CO2 is primarily responsible for warming. Sheesh. What Hansen (and the IPCC, and the rest of the climate community) was saying in 2000 wasn’t very alarming. What they are saying today is.
<
p>
(For the record, much of the pre-2000 warming was caused by non-CO2 trace gases, as Hansen argued in 2000. Woop-de-do. That’s not relevant to anything today.
<
p>
__
Yes, there was massive political pressure on the IPCC, including from politicians. Nearly all of it was to understate the effects of global warming, and therefore understate the need for government to take expensive actions. It got so bad that some scientists nearly walked out in disgust.
<
p>
__
Finally, if 50% of species do go extinct (or even 10%), the first ones to do so will- almost by definition- be those sensitive to small environmental disturbances.
<
p>
All of the species that will be effected by small environmental disturbances (rail trails, railways, highways, housing developments, farms) are going to be gone in a few decades. If you find this disturbing (as do I, and anyone with a soul should) then start working on the problem.
<
p>
At the very least, do us both a favor and do some reading about what climate scientists are saying about global warming TODAY. Not what they said seven years ago, when the picture wasn’t as scary– what they have said and written within the last year or so.
I am not interested into getting into a discussion on climate change. I don’t have the time nor do I think it would matter. You have your beliefs and I have mine. I have not read that article from Hansen. The last time I read any of his particular articles was about a year ago and at that time he was still considering non-CO2 GHG to be the primary forcing factor and biggest problem produced by man. I look forward to reading this new article when I have time.
<
p>
My point was (and is) simply this. One environmental concern does not trump the other. You can’t say that protecting local critical habitats is of no concern because 50% of the earths species will be extinct in about a 100 years. That’s just a stupid argument. That’s the type of argument I would expect to hear out of an oil company PR department.
<
p>
Also, your new argument that “the first [species to go extinct ]will- almost by definition- be those sensitive to small environmental disturbances” is equally as baseless. There is no correlation to the species that may be affected by global climate change and the ones that are now endanger and could be further put at risk by reducing or eliminating their habitat to build a rail trail. What happens to the spotted salamander species in Massachusetts has nothing to do with melting ice caps or global temperatures increasing by 1 to 3 degrees C.
Ideally, every environmental review would be comprehensive and include all environmental costs from local habitat to climate change. In practice it’s not going to happen, and maybe that’s not such a big deal.
<
p>
chaper1, do we really have a big tough choice here between protecting habitat of particular endangered species versus reducing carbon emissions? Isn’t it more likely that legitimate habitat concerns can be met with appropriate trail design and routing?
<
p>
I add that if there is a real conflict–say, the trail has to go near this pond and it can’t be built differently and there are no road routes and it’s a vital link in what would be a transportation network–then be prepared to meet a rigorous standard of proof about the amount of carbon failing to build that link would unleash.
<
p>
JK, does it really matter what is causing climate change? This isn’t a liability case in which humans won’t face dire consequences if we can prove it’s not our fault. Suppose climate change is caused by sunspots–the question is, what do we do? The scientific consensus is that cutting carbon will likely slow global warming. You aren’t asserting the opposite, are you?
<
p>
I don’t think you two are actually as much at loggerheads as you think, except maybe rhetorically.
Yep. I would suspect that yes, in the vast majority of cases legitimate concerns can be met.
<
p>
But unfortunately, this just shifts the question to the meaning of legitimate. Consider the following two arguments:
<
p>
1) We should not route a rail trail through the center of Yellowstone National Park– I don’t care about the details of design or routing. It will break a pristine wilderness in two and fill it with hordes of people, segment habitat, disturb migration routes, breeding grounds, etc.
<
p>
2) We should not route a rail trail within half a mile of that pond–I don’t care about the details of design or routing. It will disturb a sensitive natural area and fill it with hordes of people, segment habitat, disturb migration routes, breeding grounds, etc.
<
p>
Most environmentalists (certainly including me) would strongly agree that #1 is a legitimate habitat concern. I would argue that #2 is not a legitimate concern, and the trail should just be designed/routed so as to cause the minimum amount of disruption. But not everyone would agree with me.
its a good thing if any conflicts can be decided based on “the meaning of legitimate,” as opposed to “Leave me alone” or “I was here first” or “Auslander Raus.” There is a great body of expertise to decide environmental questions.
<
p>
Is it really so hard to distinguish between Yellowstone and a hypothetical pond? The former is valued by millions of people and is a legally protected federal park. The latter, not, though it may be a charming spot genuinely treasured by some people.
<
p>
Some abutters may become opponents and throw every argument against the wall just to see what sticks. This may include an opportunistic assertion of environmental quality. An environmental-review process can sort that out.
<
p>
(And real environmentalists would recognize the value of a benign public use–the more people who love that pond, the better care will be taken of it.)
<
p>
Your original hypothetical example–in which an endangered species would be further put at risk by a bike path that in turn might convey some carbon benefits–was thornier by far.
…continue with the German motif
<
p>
“Leave me alone” = Lass mich in Ruhe (sein)
<
p>
“I was here first” = ich war hier bevor dich (oder Ihnen)
<
p>
Ich bin sicher, dass du weiss, dass “Auslander” singular ist. Aber, “raus” (kleine “r”) ist richtig. “Raus” ist ein Verb, nicht ein Subtantiv.
<
p>
On the subject matter of the post and the issues regarding species, it should be recognized that “species” is little more than a taxonomy. Extinction of species has been going on for eras, and they have been replaced by other species. As far as I can tell, there is no particular reason to concern oneself with species extinction per se. I can be persuaded otherwise.
Yes, it matters in this case because chapter1 is using it as an excuse to ignore the local and very real concern over disturbing critical habitats and wetlands while constructing the rail trails.
…it is highly unlikely that “rail trails” are going to make a major dent in CO_2 emissions in eastern Massachusetts. It is probable that they might be used for recreational purposes. When I was living in Arlington VA (just outside of DC) in the mid 1970s, I would regularly bike down to Mt. Vernon on a bike path, but merely for recreational purposes. I suspect that most people would use the bike trails in MA for recreational purposes.
<
p>
The cities and towns in the US are not set up for bike transport for shopping or to get to places of employment. Contrariwise (I hate to say it again), the structure of at least the towns around Munich (and I suspect other towns in Germany) are. But they have relatively good mass transit there, which does not exist in most areas of the US. People bike up to the train station, lock their bikes, and climb onto the trains.
<
p>
That just isn’t available in the US. And that is a major problem for the US.
<
p>
Over there, I can also bike to neighboring towns (Dachau and Olching) on bike paths and bike lanes demarked on the roadways, for shopping etc.. I have yet to see bike lane demarcations on roadways in the US.
I agree that the US is way behind Europe in nearly all forms of transit oriented development (not just rail trails, but public transportation, etc.) And I agree that this is a major problem for which we will pay dearly (as will the rest of the world, because of our increased CO2 emissions.)
<
p>
I also agree rail trails won’t make a major dent, if by major dent you mean 20% cut, or something like that.
<
p>
But they are a small part of the solution. And they’re also important psychologically.. to break the death-grip that cars have on this country’s psyche.
In fact, there is no single significant solution. It’s all itty bitty bits. Sure, some bits are bigger than others, but bike trails, if created to connect hubs of transit, commerce, or community, can in fact serve to reduce auto traffic. That other people will ride their bikes for fun on the same path doesn’t take away from this idea.
<
p>
And, as I posted above, there are many people who use the Minuteman Bike Path to commute. It’s well designed for just that, since it is a spike going from urban (Alewife in Cambridge) to less-urban (Arlington, etc).