East coast Bike Greenway to link Florida and Maine

A new bike route – the East Coast Greenway – is being built along the whole of the East Coast in the US, from Florida to Maine.

The project has started in 1991, linking existing infrastructure to new paths, originally in order to connect various urban corridors on the East Coast, and it now runs through fifteen different states and around river trails and old railroads.

Eric Weis, Director of Greenway Development says: “Even though a pretty small percentage of the trail’s miles actually pass through cities, it’s still very much an urban story.”

The Greenway is now 850 miles long – it is to say 31 per cent of its final length – and will add 200 miles to its tracks by 2020.

The project needs local organising, and it works thanks to regional coordinators and volunteers, usually under the benevolence of state and local communities.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano, executive director of East Coast Greenway Alliance says:  “We can’t get this done with a top-down approach.”

With the increase in popularity of cycling during the last few years, the annual budget of the project has doubled compared with 2010 from $470,000 to nearly $1 million.

The Greenway created a cultural path through the historic region, and it promotes a healthy and environment-friendly lifestyle.

In Markatos-Soriano’s view, the East Coast Greenway is “about seeing America at the right speed, where you can take in all of the culture around you, and you don’t have a windshield between yourself and the community.”