Roanoke Celebrates Greenway

The Roanoke River Greenway was busy as usual last weekend.

With the completion of the Roanoke River Greenway now within sight, and other urban trails completed or well along in the planning stage, the city’s parks and recreation department decided to celebrate. The first ever Greenway Festival, held at Smith and Wasena Parks last Saturday, featured information kiosks, short canoe rides on the Roanoke River, live music and commercial merchants showing off their outdoor-related wares.

Doug Stanfill, with Outdoor Trails in Daleville, was promoting energy bars, water bottles and other products that greenway patrons might use. His customers would normally be found on a deep woods trail (his shop is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail), but they would probably “gravitate towards the greenways in the city [as well].  It’s a great way to stay in the city but get away from everything there.”

Roanoke Valley Greenways Commission member Mark McClain said he was “very pleased” that construction momentum is building. He noted the new section of the Roanoke River greenway just opened in Salem and another is being built from Wasena Park towards the almost-completed Vic Thomas Park on the site of a former mobile home community.

“We’re going to be adding several miles very, very soon,” said McClain. Funds are still needed “to bridge the gap,” between Salem and Roanoke City, he noted. One piece that is currently unfunded for $5 million is a stumbling block. Future plans call for extension at both ends, into Roanoke County. “I think over the next few years we’ll see some of that getting started.” McClain said the first Greenway Festival was “a great thing.”

One notable irony is that Liz Belcher, the Roanoke Valley Greenways coordinator who works among the different localities in the area, was often like the lone Pied Piper a dozen years ago, as the greenway concept was first announced. Now the Roanoke River greenway has so much traffic in the River’s Edge area that “people are now complaining about it being too busy.”

Belcher and company actually gave away bicycle bells last Saturday, part of a campaign to promote better riding etiquette on the greenways. “Ring your bell and warn them that you’re passing … so that you don’t startle them,” suggests Belcher.

By 2012, if all of the funding falls into place as expected, the Roanoke River greenway could be completed from Green Hill Park in West Roanoke County to the 13th Street parking lot near the waste treatment plant, with another link to the Tinker Creek greenway.

All told, once completed, that group of trails would amount to 18 miles. Tinker Creek will eventually connect to the Carvin’s Cove trail system. Belcher said Roanoke City is considering the revision of an ordinance that prohibits the riding of bicycles on sidewalks for those stretches of greenway that may have to incorporate sidewalks as a link between off road segments.

One of the complaints Belcher heard in the past was that completed sections of the greenway system were too short. “You have to have enough mileage to match people’s time to get there,” is her rule of thumb.

With new segments coming on-line and a 5.5-mile stretch from Wasena Park to 13th St. in place, that vision is becoming a reality.  “The Greenway Festival,” said Belcher, was a chance to “make people realize that it’s [all] pulling together.”

By Gene Marrano
[email protected]

Latest Articles

- Advertisement -

Latest Articles

- Advertisement -

Related Articles