I recently completed an awesome project for work - the Merrimack River Greenway in Concord, NH.

It was an awesome process and now I’m asking anyone who cares about natural places to take a few moments to do a personal favor for me and a valuable resource in my state (NH) (NOT ASKING FOR MONEY!). Check out this link for a key part of the study that I wrote, it has a description of the entire preferred route and some awesome nature pictures I took during the fieldwork:
http://www.cnhrpc.org/images/stories/tra...1_WithCover.pdf

The proposal for the Merrimack River Greenway Trail is to build a fifteen mile long paved shared-use path along the Merrimack River. The MRGT would be an amenity for residents and visitors to bike to work and enjoy the natural beauty the Merrimack River has to offer. Someday, it will connect to other trails, resulting in a 114-mile long, car free, biking and walking path from Salem NH to Lebanon NH -- the Granite State Rail Trail.

There is much to do before the community at large can enjoy walking and biking along the Merrimack River. With that in mind, that folks with whom and for whom I provided the engineering services (MRGT Steering Committee) are seeking to have broad support before this can become a reality. I think support from all over the country and world will help generate excitement in a big way!!!

Here are the two main ways I’m asking for your and your family/friends’support:

-- "Like" us and become a "fan" on facebook .

-- Be counted as a Registered Friend of the MRGT: 1,000 Friends of the MRGT.


Take a look at the entire study if you’d like; see the “Greenway Path Documents” at this link ; most of this is my work and photos! BMP and the MRGT.

MY SINCERE THANKS!

Kevin

Nice work, I "Like"d you.
I'll be looking forward to seeing how it progresses.

-Blast

Sounds good to me, Kevin. Paths like this are hugely beneficial and useful. There is a good chance they will attract out of state visitors (like me) who enjoy cycling on such trails.

Nice work and good luck.

Done. #166 If I'm reading things right.

HJ

Thanks!!! It means a lot. If I can ever do a good turn for u let me know!

I "liked" you. This is an outstanding project. Just think of the small hostelries that can be opened to support the hikers who want to do a multi-day hike. This has great potential.

Best of luck with your project, I like paths, all sorts. No matter where I go I end up walking, and paths will get you there.

Two items that I know you're already addressing but have come up as paths are developed here in the PNW: speeding cyclists, and incursions on private land. On the Burk-Gilman trail, the path has become a prime commuting route for cyclists, some of them moving too fast, and collisions happen with pedestrians, and occasionally cars at intersections. Fair's fair, you'll want to ensure safety of pedestrians just as you enforce traffic safety with vehicles. Also in urban areas the trail can attract some crime, such as robberies and rape - watch out for trail design issues that would make that more possible, such as surrounding brush and other places for assailants to hide. On another trail that took over a railbed between Issaquah and Redmond, the old rail bed ran smack dab through dozens of existing waterfront homes, which had gotten used to the lightly used rail line but are adamantly not happy with more frequent cycle traffic running through their front (or sometimes back) yards. What were once quaint lake side cottages for suburban dwelling middle classes had grown into multi millin dollar mcmansions, with resident lawyers, rich people and well-tended lawns etc. I think they're still fighting over re-routing parts of that trail, not sure - you'll want to be sensitive to adjacent property owners of course.

None of this is so difficult that reasonable folks can't address this in their own communities and contexts. Good luck!

Done on the yahoo group. As a fellow New Englander, I look forward to this project. Best of luck.

I would suggest plenty of access from the trail to public streets. That seems to be a huge problem with some of these type of trails. Its almost like they force users to go across private property to get on or off the trail because it is so hard to do so otherwise. This situation is not real helpful with the property owners along the trail.

Personally, I prefer hiking in the forest and consider paved trails to be an abomination of sorts.

But these kind of trails are mostly for the guys on bikes. And they prefer paving to dirt.