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Entries tagged: Trails

You may not know Dayton Duncan’s name, but you’re probably familiar with his work. Even if you don’t own a television, you heard the buzz about Ken Burn’s spectacular 2010 mini-series, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”

Well, Duncan was the man behind the camera, scripting the narrative that earned the 12-part documentary two Emmy Awards for outstanding writing. Yesterday, Duncan served as an inspiring keynote speaker at the American Trails National Symposium.

While his speech related most directly to trails and national parks, I couldn’t help but apply his insight to the broader bicycle and pedestrian movement. Duncan spoke eloquently of John Muir’s spiritual conversion and passionate crusades to preserve our sacred vistas and valleys. Duncan suggested that, in our work to create environments that get more Americans off the couch and into the open air, we are following in Muir’s footsteps. By creating the infrastructure and shaping a culture that better serves the spirit and health of future generations, we are equally immortal.

On one hand, Duncan’s speech made me want to ditch my job, hop on a bike and start pedaling across the country to take in all 58 national parks. But on the other, it framed the importance of the daily grind of bike-ped advocacy. We’re not designating national parks, but Alliance member organizations have a similar, perhaps even more important, goal. We’re enhancing our everyday public spaces to better serve our physical and spiritual wellbeing — and the health of generations to come.

Here’s a few snippets from Duncan’s speech:

“We are a nation more and more urban, more and more disconnected from the natural world, more and more distracted by the virtual realities that engulf us — from meeting friends on Facebook, to talking to people on Twitter, to watching reality shows about real housewives or real kids, and, yes, even spending 12 hours watching a documentary film about national parks, instead of taking 30 minutes to walk in a city park. We’re a nation in desperate need of getting up off the couch and out in open air. Everything you do encourages that noble essential goal, so thank you very much for what you do.

“You’ve heard a lot about trails the last few days and a lot of focus on trails is, very rightfully, about how good they are for people’s health… For me, trails are important, not so much for my physical health, but I think about what they do for my spiritual health; not just strengthening your heart, but touching your heart and transforming your life. There’s an old Native American saying: All roads are good. In other words, it’s not the destination; it’s the journey. It’s not what you set off to find, but what you discover along the way that matters the most. And I’d like to modify that today and declare, All trails are good… All trails are good because they invite you to follow them and open yourself up to experience the world, not on Facebook but face-to-face, not through a plasma screen, but through no screen at all…

“Few of us are John Muir. We may not have his eloquence, his distilled passion, his unbending determination and therefore his immense immortal impact on the world. But all of us understand the importance of national parks, city parks and trails and all the public lands, which he championed. We all here agree that all trails are good because they can open us up to connection to rest of creation and expose us to something bigger than ourselves. All trails are good, not just for our physical health, but our spiritual health — maybe for our spiritual health most of all… That’s why the work you do is so important. Every 100 yards of trails — no, every yard of trail — wherever it is, newly made or restored, makes a difference. Every person you encourage to take one of those trails is made better because of your work. Therefore, like John Muir you are impacting and shaping a future we won’t see, but that we hope will be better than the present.”

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) worked with six counties and agencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to secure $23 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grant Program.

This multi-jurisdictional project, called Generating Recovery by Enhancing Active Transportation in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (GREAT-PA/NJ), will help complete a network of biking and walking trails throughout the region, focused on connections to urban hubs in Philadelphia and Camden. The Bicycle Coalition and PEC assembled the proposal along with Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities and Mayor Nutter’s Metropolitan Caucus. The proposal received letters of support from more than 52 elected officials, institutions and non-profit organizations, including all four senators and eight members of congress in the region.

For more info visit the BCGP blog.