Historic Preservation/Community Identity

Many community leaders have been surprised at how trails have become sources of community identity and pride.  These effects are magnified when communities use trails and greenways to highligh and provide access to historic and cultural resources.  Many trails and greenways themselves preserve historically significant transportation corridors.

Community Pride

Trails and greenways help make communities more attractive and friendly places to live.  History is preserved, local culture is enhanced and provides a community meeting place and a canvas for social interaction.

Connecting Us to Our Past

Trails have the power to connect us to our heritage by preserving historic places and by providing access to them.  They can give people a sense of place and an understanding of the enormity of past events, such as Indian trails and vast battlefields.  Trails and greenways draw the public to historic sites.   

Recreational Opportunities 

Trails and greenways provide what many Americans seek-close to home recreational areas, community meeting places, historic preservation, educational experiences, natural landscapes and beautification.

Both trails and greenways help communities build pride by ensuring that their neighborhhoods are good places to live, so that children can safely walk or bike to a park, school, or to a neighbor's home. 

Transportation Corridors

Other trails preserve transportation corridors.  Rail-trails along historic rail corridors provide a glance at the importance of this mode of transportation.  Many cananl paths, preserved for their historic importance as a transportation route before the advent of railroads, are now used by thousands of people each year for bicycling, running, hiking and strolling.