Cuomo pitches 750-mile biking-hiking trail plan for NY state | The Kansas City Star

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing to complete and connect two greenway trails crisscrossing the state from Manhattan to Canada and from Albany to Buffalo to create a 750-mile paved biking and hiking route that will be marketed as a national tourist destination.

"We want to build the largest multi-use trail in the nation," said the Democratic governor at a state of the state speech Tuesday in Westchester County. Cuomo proposed spending $200 million over three years to pave 350 miles of gaps in the existing greenways and connect them to create what he calls the Empire State Trail.

Legislative leaders had no comment on the proposal, which would need legislative approval in the state budget starting with $53 million this year.

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Cuomo pitches 750-mile biking-hiking trail plan for NY state | The Kansas City Star

MoBikeFed comment: This is the type of vision that other states and other governors across the country are pursuing for their statewide trails.

These projects bring health bicycling and walking opportunities to communities across the state, provide vital transportation links for citizens of all ages and ability levels, provide healthy vacation and travel options for citizens in a multi-state area, and bring much-needed economic development to communities along the trails.

Of course, these statewide trails work best when communities along the way are bicycle and walk friendly, when they follow through with programs like Trail Towns to make the communities truly inviting to trail-related tourists, and when the trails are part of a much larger, interconnected, high-quality bicycle and pedestrian network.

Those are all projects we are pursuing as part of our Vision for Bicycling and Walking in Missouri, but much work remains to be done!

https://gaptrail.org/assets/TrailTownManual-c7ef7d3de9ff523f6118e3f0868c...

http://mobikefed.org/vision