Annotated Table of Contents Beyond Greenways The Next Step in City Trails and Walking Routes Robert Searns
Prologue After a lengthy career of planning and developing greenways and trails, particularly in urban areas, the author asked, “What’s next? Are there new ways to shape these kinds of spaces that expands outdoor opportunities to a broader population and offers ways to move about more freely on the landscape?” In contemplating this question, two epiphanous encounters led to a new vison for a next generation of the greenways concept. The first came when visiting Jeju Olle, a 271-loop trail, built primarily for walking, that encircles South Korea’s Jeju Island along its edges. The second inspiration came at a citizen’s meeting in Commerce City, Colorado where two elderly ladies said they “just wanted nice places to walk, close to home where they didn’t have to dodge bikes” These experiences inspired the author to set out on foot to explore a new trails concept by trekking the entire perimeter of Metro Denver and then going on several shorter in-town loop walks. From this emerged a new paradigm: grand loops and town walks. They are not linear like most greenways but loops primarily for
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