Steve … Your presentation in Batavia a few days ago was fantastic. There are so many opportunities to build and link trail systems in Illinois … and to take advantage of that network to generate economic development and tourism dollars. Hope you’ll be available to reprise your talk in June at a bike summit our Elgin BPAC hopes to host. Maybe bring your guitar in case the audio/visual takes some time to sync. Keep up the good work! TAtheBA

How cool is THIS? The @CahokiaMounds Heritage Trail Plan and an accompanying brochure are available for download.

Man, from a trail/bikeway-miles-per-person standpoint, I think the southwest Illinois metro area might be richer in amenities than NE Illinois. Research shows that trail users, regardless of how/why they are using trails, largely travel less than 10 minutes to get there; that’s about a 2-mile bike ride, or a 1-mile easy jog. Get a trail within 2 miles of where people live, and you’ve just turned their driveways into trailheads.

Someone do that analysis for us: what percentage of southwest Illinois metro residents have access to trails/bikeways within 2 miles of their driveway? Compared to Chicagoland? 

We’ll call it the Driveway Trailhead index. Shoot us the numbers!