Support grows for US trail system proposal allowing coast-to-coast travel without roadways

When Mike O’Neil opened his bicycle repair shop in Muncie, Indiana, the Cardinal Greenway trail just outside its window stretched only 2 miles south of the shop. Today, it extends 33 miles beyond that, but the ultimate vision is far grander. O'Neil hopes the trail born from eastern Indiana's old railroad tracks will eventually become a central cog in the proposed Great American Rail-Trail — a continuous network of walking and biking routes spanning from Washington state to Washington, D.

As the trail gets longer, more and more people use it,' said O’Neil, who has completed five coast-to-coast bike trips and usually comps the repair costs for out-of-state cyclists visiting his Greenway 500 Bike Shop, which he's owned for nearly two decades. 'It would be a wonderful blessing to have it all connected.

Still, trail activists say the commitment is almost as important as the dollar figure. 'The number is not as big as we want it to be, but the fact it’s happening is huge,' said Brandi Horton from the Rails to Trails Conservancy. 'The administration is understanding in a way we’ve never seen before the role that active transportation has in helping people get around the places where they live.

People are frustrated and disappointed,' Brinton said. 'I have lots of clients who live in rural Indiana who say, ‘We don’t want a trail here.’ But that can't even be factored into the analysis. Nobody cares what the landowners want.' Indiana's Cardinal Greenway trail stretches 62 miles between Marion and Richmond with a several-mile gap in the middle. In many ways, it represents both the future of active transportation and its roots in rail travel.

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