I made the following video during the same ride that I made the Holland Ave. video. This shows the South Creek Greenway. The two routes allow rather easy access from neighborhoods in the south to MSU and downtown.
South Creek Greenway from acline on Vimeo.
The greenways are parks. They are intended primarily for recreation. But they can also serve as bicycle highways — separate routes vaguely similar to what we see in David Hembrow’s videos from Holland. But there’s a big difference (several, actually): As recreational paths, the greenways are not actually intended to move people from point A to point B. One has to imagine what active transportation would be like in Springfield if such paths were planned and built as routes to destinations, e.g. downtown, schools, shopping.
What makes the greenway system work for bicycle commuting and utility cycling are the connections to the bicycle route system. There are many such connections. And one important push now is to build more connections like the one I mentioned re: the Holland Ave. video.
Comments 4
In Columbia we have gravel trails. That makes them unusable except on sunny sundays in the summer time.
Its a joke and its awful for the environment. After every rain the city has to dump tons of new gravel onto the trails which will only wash into the local creeks during the next rain.
Our locals here are so into the environment that they find it impossible to understand that. They only know that when they drive their Prius which is plastered with “Bush is the Devil” bumper stickers to the trail on nice days that they like it graveled. I find THAT form of environmentalism to be very infuriating.
They would never stop driving and in fact they drive everywhere but are quick to point out how evil drivers of SUV’s are or how we should never, ever, ever concrete a trail.
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Supposedly conservative springfield does not have these problems and they will end up making more progress on non motorized issues than Columbia will.
We had an opportunity to build the trail of all trails in Columbia recently. It would have removed hundred’s of people from their cars. It would have connected MU with a part of town littered with apartment complexes etc. The only problem was that the super liberals on the city council could not stand the thought of a single tree being pushed over with a bulldozer so it failed.
Its this sort of environmentalism that keeps windfarms from being developed and keeps people inside their cars.
Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 11:51 am ¶Robert… Springfield city government isn’t as conservative as people outside the area might think. Yes, there’s a lot of fiscal restraint (and tax aversion). But there’s much that is progressive in a good way.
Your situation sounds terribly frustrating.
It would be cool to get create a joint delegation between our towns to: 1) Discuss infrastructure issues, and 2) Go visit David Hembrow in the Netherlands for his study tour.
So do you think there is any possibility?
Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 1:57 pm ¶I enjoyed the video. It actually looks like a pretty decent route overall.
It’s a shame that many people are (it would seem from your other post) scared to use it.
I’m coming to believe that a low crime rate and high conviction rate (in both cases this needs to be perceived as well as real) are absolutely essential for mass cycling. While the outside is believed to be dangerous it will always seem like the car is the safest place to be.
Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 3:10 pm ¶David… Perhaps the reaction of those two women is indicative. Hmmmmm…
How much fear there actually is is difficult to determine. Spring through fall, the trails are generally well-used to crowded (enough that people complain about it), depending on the day and time.
Posted 29 Dec 2008 at 4:05 pm ¶