#GreenwaySummit Virtual Schedule

Full #GreenwaySummit Pre-Recorded Presentation Playlist

#GreenwaySummit Schedule

Artist-in-residence Sarah Crooks & "Greening North Florida: Watch video

It’s no surprise that much of Sarah Crooks’ art reflects the natural environment around her Jacksonville, Florida, home — the St. Johns River, bears and butterflies, grasses and trees. Art, she says, is both a means of communicating our inner expression and a way to pay homage to something you love. And Crooks loves the natural world, where she has found beauty and wonder since she was young. The East Coast Greenway Alliance, in partnership with the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, has named Crooks an artist-in-residence for our April 2020 Southeast Greenways & Trails Summit. As Sarah explains in the video linked above, you can click here to download and print your own butterflies to add to the East Coast Greenway Flock: https://bit.ly/ECGflock

9:30 AM (LIVE, Join Zoom webinar): Welcome and dialogue

• East Coast Greenway Alliance Executive Director Dennis Markatos-Soriano
• 8 80 Cities founder Gil Penalosa  
• Welcome from Danielle Arigoni, AARP Livable Communities: Watch video for more

10:15 AM: Healthy Communities, The Intersection of Public Health and the Environment: View video presentation | View presentation slides

Did you know that your zip code contributes more to your health than your genetic code? Where you work, live and play has a great effect on your health. Your methods of transportation, recreation, and ability to incorporate physical fitness in a safe environment are part of a number of health factors that influence your length and quality of life. The East Coast Greenway is a fine example of the types of initiatives that are paramount to improving public health. We look forward to sharing our data with you on the state of our region in support of this initiative.

• Susan Grich, President & CEO, Health Planning Council of Northeast Florida  

11AM: Breakout Session

West Ashley Greenway & Maryville Bikeway: Implementation and Equity Challenges for Charleston’s Premier Trail System: View video presentation

The West Ashley Greenway and Maryville Bikeway in Charleston, S.C., are a critical recreational and active transportation link of the East Coast Greenway. We’ll provide background on these trails and their planning history, including the recent West Ashley Greenway & Bikeway Master Plan. We’ll present some of the artistic details of the latest master plan, including gateways, public art, and street crossings & intersection safety. Political challenges for implementation will be discussed from a city staff’s perspective, including working with elected officials, local utilities, the state DOT, and attempts at securing federal funding for a major bridge link between downtown Charleston and West Ashley. We’ll conclude with a prominent local advocate’s perspective of how the trails might change local communities for better or worse, and how to advocate for and be inclusive with the potential benefits for these neighborhoods while trying to minimize negative impacts. 

• Victor Dover, founding principal, Dover, Kohl & Partners
• Luiza Leite, town planner, Dover, Kohl & Partners
• Keith Benjamin, traffic & transportation director, City of Charleston
• Diane Hamilton, president, Ashleyville Neighborhood Association

 

Trail Advocacy, Raising a Nonprofit from Conception to Adolescence: View video presentation |View presentation slides

The co-founder of the St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop Alliance will describe challenges, opportunities, what’s been accomplished in four years, what remains to be done, successes, failures, lessons learned, and how we can help each other succeed. Trails depend on advocacy groups to advance, advocate, support, promote and protect the trail. How far can a group get without major funding and employees? What can be expected of volunteers? How do you leverage partnerships and engage academic institutions and businesses. No group can thrive and mature in a vacuum; we’ll explore the possibility of a network of nonprofits for mutual support and mentoring. 

• Maggie Ardito, president and co-founder, St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop Alliance

• Brent Buice, Georgia and South Carolina coordinator, East Coast Greenway Alliance

 

Noon (LIVE, Join Zoom webinar): Welcome and remarks, Huiwei Shen, Chief Planner, Florida Department of Transportation View presentation slides

Shen joined the Florida Department of Transportation in 1996 as a travel demand modeler and has worked in many areas of planning since, including the development of the Florida Transportation Plan. She served as the project manager for the East Central Florida Corridor Task Force and the I-75 Relief Task Force, building consensus for statewide transportation corridors. 

12:15 PM (LIVE, Join Zoom webinar): Who Really Benefits from the Core to Coast Trail?, Andy Clarke, Director of Strategy, Toole Design Group View presentation slides

The economic benefits of trail development are well documented, but who really derives those benefits? Toole Design is exploring this question in relation to the proposed Core to Coast Trail as it passes through Jacksonville. Andy Clarke will tell an emerging story about the potential benefits of the trail that could be priceless to the community…or could be rejected as a challenge to the economic stability of the neighborhoods through which it passes.

1:15 PM: Breakout Session 

Trails that Encourage Belonging: View video presentation

We’ll present two tour models used by Civil Bikes and discuss the outcomes of each, the differences between the two, and the challenges and successes. We’ll discuss the unique design characteristics that achieve the desired outcomes and how to remedy any lingering challenges. Participants will identify best practices for designing a tour that encourages a sense of belonging.

• Nedra Deadwyler, CEO, Civil Bikes

 

Emerging Technology = Emerging Trail Users: How EBikes and Electric and Autonomous Vehicles are Effecting Trail Development: View video presentation | View presentation slides

Emerging technologies such as e-bikes, neighborhood electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles represent a new group of trail users that we must consider for trail design and management. These new modes of trail use introduce challenges such as increasing the speed differential between users on the trail, creating potential trail user group conflicts, and requiring different trail design and amenities. Some trail managers are working to develop trails that incorporate these new modes to provide a trail system for all users, embracing these emerging technologies. We’ll discuss the unique aspects to designing for these emerging technologies and some of the challenges. From solar panel shade structures to self-driving shuttles, we will discuss how the next generation of trails may change not only our definition of a trail but also our transportation network.

• Bradley Davis, principal, Alta Planning + Design 

 

The James River Park System Master Plan - Connecting Richmond: View video presentation |View presentation slides

Learn how a shared park experience, an extensive public engagement effort, and a heated discussion helped to form a master plan for the James River Park System in Richmond, Virginia. The plan covers a range of topics including trail expansion, completion of the trail network, connections to the East Coast Greenway, and park access throughout the region. We’ll review best practices for stakeholder participation, diversifying access to public lands, trail expansion, and balancing access with resource preservation. 

• Cassi Patterson, transportation planner, VHB
• Chris DeWitt, principal, VHB 
• Phil Riggan, transportation planner, PlanRVA

Climate Change: Trails and Transformation: View video presentation 

We’ll set up trails as a cornerstone of civitas, imputing common purpose and shared responsibility for adaptive community. Seen this way, trails broaden the base for long-distance trails advocacy and funding. Trails are about “place.” They put people in touch with where they find themselves. Bicycling and walking are the antithesis of driving. Trails re-prioritize human scale, personal accountability for wellbeing, the protection of indispensable local and regional resources that include rail corridors, farming, land conservation and heritage preservation, and of collaborative economy that fosters local re-investment. We’ll present a history of trails as the earliest mobility corridors, followed by nearly two centuries of exploiting transportation divorced from place. How does climate change influence re-balance? Through the lens of three case studies, we’ll look at emerging opportunities that indicate trails for large-scale problem solving.

• Paul Jerome Croce, director, American Studies Program, Stetson University
• Herb Hiller, writer and ecotourism expert
• Jim Wood, planning director, Kimley-Horn View presentation slides 

 

2 PM (LIVE, Join Zoom webinar): Sticker Shock, A Tail of Two Trails

• Iona Thomas, public sector director, MacAdams  View presentation slides

 

2:45 PM: Breakout Session

Helping Communities through Bicycle Tourism: View video presentation | View presentation slides

Bicycle tourism has the power to transform a community’s quality of life, as you’ll hear through the story of Bike Florida’s evolution from a touring agency to a statewide organization whose goal is to help Florida communities improve their economic health, bicycle infrastructure, and safety through bicycle tourism. We’ll discuss the changing bicycle tourism industry, why trails are so important for the economic health and quality of life for residents, and how crucial it is to think out of the box when developing partnerships to advance trail development. We’ll also look at simple and fun ways to draw bicycle tourists to a community that has trails.

• Joy Hancock, executive director, Bike Florida

 

Using Greenways to Combat Climate Change: View video presentation | View presentation slides

Motorized transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. As our country experiences record heat waves, intensified storm events and other impacts from climate change, we must shift our focus to clean forms of transportation. Greenways are a critical piece of the clean transportation solution. The use of greenways can decrease greenhouse gas emissions and create communities that are more resilient to climate change. Sarah Sanford will explain how greenways can be used to combat climate change and discuss what we need to do to break down barriers to greenway usage. This story will be told through the lens of case studies in North Carolina, but the lessons learned are applicable to greenways throughout the United States.

• Sarah Sanford, North Carolina-Virginia coordinator, East Coast Greenway Alliance

Equitable Trail Tourism: Advocating for Affordable and "Always Available" Accommodations: View video presentation

Equity is not a term we hear in relation to tourism very often, including trail tourism. Tourism benefits tend to be promoted in terms of profit-driven economic development favoring high-end travel rather than hospitality-driven community development that is welcoming of everyone and all modes of travel. Hiker/biker camping provides a model for affordable and “always available” accommodations that builds confidence in would-be cyclists or hikers. We’ll look at how Adventure Cycling Association has worked with small towns and state parks to promote hiker/biker camping and hospitality options and provide insights and resources for ECG advocates to expand these models to the Southeast. 

• Saara Snow, advocacy manager, Adventure Cycling

 

4 PM: Breakout Session

A Rose by Any Other Name: How to Sell Separation and Identify Unexpected Partnerships: View video presentation | View presentation slides 

This presentation is dedicated to the lost art of partnership and identifying strategies to meet our collective goals by maximizing existing opportunities. While the title may sound silly, by the end of this session you’ll walk away with a new outlook on how to achieve desired outcomes of separated trails by being creative, open to new opportunities and leveraging a long term planning strategy. 

• Heather Neville, principal, VRUM

Grayways: Industrial Rings as Opportunities for Trail Planning: View video presentation |View presentation slides

East Coast cities typically have bands of industrial uses around their margins, causing challenges for long-distance trail connectivity. New York and Philadelphia are around 100 miles apart via the most direct cycling and walking route, but because the East Coast Greenway is aligned to take advantage of existing greenspace and to avoid inhospitable infrastructure — and many other logistical challenges — that distance is extended to around 125 miles, some of which is still quite harrowing. We’ll generate ideas for new trail typologies that approach the industrial rings as opportunities rather than impediments, with the New York-Philadelphia corridor as a case study. 

• Alec Spangler, landscape architecture faculty, Penn State Univ.

 

5 PM (LIVE, Join Zoom webinar): Closing

• V Christiansen, East Coast Greenway Florida Coordinator
• Brent Buice, East Coast Greenway Georgia & South Carolina Coordinator
• Sarah Sanford, East Coast Greenway Virginia & North Carolina Coordinator

 

Virtual Poster Session

Click links below to view the posters:

• Healthy Communities: The Intersection of Public Health and the Environment  | Jackie Morrison, Health Planning Council of Northeast Florida (HPCNEF)

• Orange Avenue Linear Park | Kailey Saver, Nassau County Board of Commissioners

• Putnam Trail System and Palatka Trail Town and Saint John’s River-to-Sea Loop | Kraig McLane, Greenway and Trails Planner

• Schoolhouse Rock | Becky Alfonso, Florida Bicycle Association

• I Yield to Life Campaign | Heather Neville, VRUM Planning

• Tabby Trail Map | City of St Marys 

Additional Presentations

• Fostering a Legacy of Conservation, Connectivity and Community Partnerships | Bret Baronak, Carolina Thread Trail