Ellettsville to create trails

What used to be the biggest form of transportation is now acting as a more eco-friendly way of getting around.

Rails-to-Trails is a nationwide project that takes abandoned railroad paths and turns them into nature trails for public use.

Rhonda Border-Boose, state director for the Rails-to-Trails Midwest Regional Office, said the trails are perfectly designed for the public and have a lot of impact on their communities.

Border-Boose said because the paths used to be for trains, they are already perfectly flat. This allows people in wheel chairs, mothers with strollers, people rollerblading or people just walking to be able to use the trail. Another reason these trails are good additions to communities, Border-Boose said, is they help people’s physical health and the well-being of the environment.

“Because people are out of their cars walking, it is affecting the amount of carbon admission from cars, and it’s getting people out walking,” Border-Boose said.

She said there are more than 15,000 miles of rail-trails in the United States. With this large number, it might come as a surprise that there are no rail-trails in Monroe County. Frank Nierzwicki, Ellettsville director of planning, said that will all change soon.

Nierzwicki said a rail-trail is something people from the area have been pushing since 2000. Named the Heritage Trail, he said, the new trail is going to follow an abandoned rail path from Ellettsville to Bloomington.

Nierzwicki said this will open a whole new form of transportation. With the trail connecting Bloomington and Ellettsville, he said, people will be able to bike from one town to the other. Nierzwicki said there are also going to be designated green areas all along the trail.

“The area is a flood plain,” he said. “This limits the amount of buildings that can be built along the trail.”

Nierzwicki said he sees this as a good thing because it allows the creeks and natural areas to become part of the trail. Part of that natural area is Monroe County’s abundance of limestone, which Nierzwicki said he hopes can become a big part of the trail.

With preliminary work ongoing, Nierzwicki said bids for construction should be done by 2010, with construction starting that summer.

Rails-to-Trails has built trails throughout Indiana, but the program is not alone. The Greenways Foundation helps Rails-to-Trails, as well as other programs.

“We work with communities to help get the benefits of trails faster than the communities normally would,” The Greenways Foundation Executive Director Ron Carter said.

Carter said he thinks the trails bring physical and environmental health and economic growth. He said with the additions of trails, quality of life is improved. When new businesses are looking for a new town in which to build, they will see a high quality of life and be more likely to build, Carter said.

Carter also said the trails can become a tourist destination. The Monon Trail, he said, is a 15.5-mile trail near Indianapolis that is used by more than 1.5 million people a year. Carter said that is more visitors on average than at Colts and Pacers games combined. With this number of people coming to the trail, he said, people are buying food, gas and a number of other things.

With trails throughout the United States, Border-Boose said she really wants to stress what these trails are about. She said they encompass the benefits of physical activity and energy conservation affecting climate change. In all, Border-Boose said all the benefits could be stated as one main benefit.

“These trials are really all about active transportation,” she said.