News & Features
Trails: Arteries of Health and Connectivity
By Mark Fausz
May 14, 2008 - 4:31:17 PM

Build them and they will be used. Walking trails throughout the community provide safe travel for walkers and bikers.

Getting from one place to another without getting in a car has become only a fond memory for most of us. Traveling to work, to the grocery, school or just to visit someone just around the corner typically consists of getting there in a car. Even a trip to the gym to get healthy involves getting in an automobile and hitting the highway.

With the high cost of gasoline and more emphasis on staying healthy, walking, running, or riding a bicycle is rapidly increasing in popularity. But living in a community planned and built with the car in mind, options are limited.

But some citizens of Chesterfield have taken matters into their own hands, and walking/biking trail initiatives are breaking out all over. Some trails, no pun intended, are already on the ground. The Government Complex trail was used by over 3,350 people in March. Trails built as part of development in the western part of the county are considered amenities to communities like Brandermill, Woodlake, The Grove, and Walton Park. Plans for trails intended to connect neighborhoods are just now beginning to gain momentum. Plans are being made and funding sought.

 “If you live only a quarter mile from a library or a park, you should not have to drive there to arrive safely,” says Barney McLaughlin. Recently appointed to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee (PRAC), McLaughlin has close ties to an Enon group that is working to build a trail from Meadowville down Enon Church Rd. to R. Garland Dodd / Point of Rocks Park and then across to Jefferson Davis Hwy.

Amy Brink, an Enon resident who is spearheading the yet unnamed Point of Rocks trail, says, “Because Point of Rocks park is located along a busy thoroughfare, it is not accessible by children on foot from the surrounding neighborhoods.  This has been the case for over 20 years. Support for the long needed access path is growing stronger every year. I never speak with anyone who is not enthusiastic and excited that a path connecting to the park might be constructed.”

At its terminus at Jefferson Davis Hwy., the Point of Rocks trail is only about 1,000 feet from a trail head that is part of a trail network built into the Chester Plan. The network includes trails from the Lowe’s Soccer Complex to Wells Elementary School; the Linear Park trail which would extend north to Rt. 288 and south through the new Branner Station development and follows the abandoned Seaboard Coast rail line to Colonial Heights, and eventually the lower Appomattox trail.  The Appomattox Trail continues to grow south of the Appomattox River under the leadership of FOLAR (Friends of the Lower Appomattox River). Several pedestrian walking/biking routes that connect neighborhoods with schools and shopping are also on Chesterfield’s comprehensive plan for Chester. Chesterfield is also planning a trail to mirror the FOLAR trail on the north side of the Appomattox.

“As a community, we are concerned with health and obesity issues, but yet we design our parks and shopping centers without walkability.  If you go to any city, people just assume they will be walking; there are very few obese people. I just wonder since we were made to walk, our suburban lifestyle has had adverse effects on our health,” says Bermuda District Supervisor Dorothy Jaeckle.

Trail advocates tout the economic, health, and tourism advantages of pedestrian/bikeways. Mark Endries, member and chief protagonist of the Green Infrastructure Group (GIG) in Chesterfield has studied the effect the trail can have on communities.

“Trails connect and create communities and are economic engines to businesses located near them.  Stories from the Washington & Old Dominion Trail (W & OD) in Northern Virginia include one of a business owner needing to add a second cash register to handle all of the [trail-generated] business,” says Endries. “Additionally, it has been found that homes along trails are worth more and have been priced higher.  In fact, a homeowner alongside the W&OD trail placed a for sale sign on the back yard of his property along the trail [when selling his home].”

Endries says another exciting fact about trails is that they bring tourists to the area.  There is a huge eco-tourism market that exists where people want to experience a community that has trails – and visit cultural and historical sites, shops, restaurants, and hotels.  “The story of Damascus, Va., along the Virginia Creeper Trail, proves this to be true.”

When last updated in February of 1989, the “Bike Plan” for Chesterfield stated, “Bicycling provides an excellent form of recreation in Chesterfield County. Over 50,000 county residents over the age of 12 regularly participate in bicycling for recreation. In addition, bicycling provides an alternate form of transportation as over 10,000 county residents over the age of 12 commute to school or work on a bicycle. Although there are a limited number of isolated bike trails in the county parks system, there has been little planning or development of a coordinated countywide bikeway system.”

Mike Golden, director of Chesterfield’s parks and recreation department, is working with a tight budget to bring about a number of trails initiatives. “We have a number of citizens who are working to bring trails to the community and we support them in whatever way we can,” he says. Golden says a trail bridge currently being constructed on a trail at Henricus Historical Park would be completed this summer and offer a tremendous opportunity for an approximate two-mile loop.

Each trail is unique in its purpose, location, and place on its completion timeline. This article is the first in a series of articles that will explore each trail in detail.

mfausz@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421


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