The Halifax Urban Greenway is a concept for a multi-use recreational trail, called a greenway, in Nova Scotia on the southwestern part of the Halifax Peninsula. This proposed greenway is not a rail trail, but is intended to pass through a narrow greenbelt along the edges of an active rail corridor, several dozen feet in elevation above the railway tracks.
An extensive deep rock cut was created throughout this part of the Halifax Peninsula in 1916-1918 for Canadian Government Railways access to the Halifax Ocean Terminal. Today, the Canadian National Railway uses the corridor for its freight trains and Via Rail Canada uses it for passenger trains.
The areas along the edge of the cut at street level have been preserved from urban development and have resulted in a valuable natural greenspace and appearing as a river of greenery flowing through this part of the city. The vegetation and continuous tree canopy provides habitat for birds, wildflowers and other flora and fauna.
The aim of planners is to create a trail system along the top of the rock cut, which would link an area from Chebucto Road to Young Avenue, connecting the Armdale Rotary with Point Pleasant Park.
Benefits
HUGA Trail
Green space and natural habitat in this part of Halifax would be preserved. Residents would be able to walk, bike and jog on the trail which would connect isolated sections of parkland along the corridor as well as water access points on the Northwest Arm.
The Halifax Urban Greenway Association is a community organization that has been set up to work with the railway company, HRM, the universities, volunteers, business, corporations, and foundations to plan for the preservation of the greenway and its development for public access.
Progress
In the fall of 2009 Phase One of the concept plan was opened to public use.
The Katy Trail State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Missouri that contains the Katy Trail, the country's longest continuous recreational rail trail. It runs 240 miles (390 km), largely along the northern bank of the Missouri River, in the right-of-way of the former Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. Open year-round from sunrise to sunset, it serves hikers, joggers, and cyclists. Its hard, flat surface is of "limestone pug".
A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcars, or with disused track. As shared-use paths, rail trails are primarily for non-motorized traffic including pedestrians, bicycles, horseback riders, skaters, and cross-country skiers, although snowmobiles and ATVs may be allowed. The characteristics of abandoned railways—gentle grades, well-engineered rights of way and structures, and passage through historical areas—lend themselves to rail trails and account for their popularity. Many rail trails are long-distance trails, while some shorter rail trails are known as greenways or linear parks.
The Halifax Peninsula is a peninsula within the urban area of the Municipality of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The South End is a neighbourhood within Halifax's urban area, in the Municipality of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The Ocean, previously known as the Ocean Limited, is a passenger train operated by Via Rail in Canada between Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is the oldest continuously operated named passenger train in North America. The Ocean's schedule takes approximately 22 hours, running overnight in both directions. Together with The Canadian and Via's corridor trains, the Ocean provides a transcontinental service across Canada.
The Halifax and South Western Railway was a historic Canadian railway operating in the province of Nova Scotia.
The Bloomingdale Trail is a 2.7-mile (4.3 km) elevated rail trail linear park running east–west on the northwest side of Chicago. It is the longest greenway project of a former elevated rail line in the Western Hemisphere, and the second longest in the world, after the Promenade plantee linear park in Paris. In 2015, the City of Chicago converted the former Bloomingdale railway line to an elevated greenway, which forms the backbone of the 606 trail network. The Bloomingdale Trail elevated park is in the Logan Square, Humboldt Park, and West Town community areas.
The Midtown Greenway is a 5.7-mile (9.2 km) rail trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota that follows the path of an abandoned route of the Milwaukee Road railway. It is considered under segregated cycle facilities.
A greenway is usually a shared-use path along a strip of undeveloped land, in an urban or rural area, set aside for recreational use or environmental protection. Greenways are frequently created out of disused railways, canal towpaths, utility company rights of way, or derelict industrial land. Greenways can also be linear parks, and can serve as wildlife corridors. The path's surface may be paved and often serves multiple users: walkers, runners, bicyclists, skaters and hikers. A characteristic of greenways, as defined by the European Greenways Association, is "ease of passage": that is that they have "either low or zero gradient", so that they can be used by all "types of users, including mobility impaired people".
Conrose Park, also known as the Horsefield, is a Canadian urban park in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the western area of the Halifax Peninsula.
Transportation in Greater St. Louis, Missouri includes road, rail, ship, and air transportation modes connecting the bi-state St. Louis metropolitan area with surrounding communities throughout the Midwest, national transportation networks, and international locations. The Greater St. Louis region also supports a multi-modal transportation network that includes bus, paratransit, and light rail service in addition to shared-use paths, bike lanes and greenways.
The Chrysler Canada Greenway is a 42 km-long rail trail in Essex County, Ontario, Canada, stretching from Oldcastle to Leamington.
Halifax Regional Municipality has a multi-modal transportation network.
Halifax station is an inter-city railway terminal in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, operated by Via Rail.
A linear park is a type of park that is significantly longer than it is wide. These linear parks are strips of public land running along canals, rivers, streams, defensive walls, electrical lines, or highways and shorelines. Examples of linear parks include everything from wildlife corridors to riverways to trails, capturing the broadest sense of the word. Other examples include rail trails, which are disused railroad beds converted for recreational use by removing existing structures. Commonly, these linear parks result from the public and private sectors acting on the dense urban need for open green space. Linear parks stretch through urban areas, coming through as a solution for the lack of space and need for urban greenery. They also effectively connect different neighborhoods in dense urban areas as a result, and create places that are ideal for activities such as jogging or walking. Linear parks may also be categorized as greenways. In Australia, a linear park along the coast is known as a foreshoreway. When being designed, linear parks appear unique as they are planned around the public's opinion of how the space will affect them.
Commonwealth Connections is a greenway and conservation initiative co-developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the National Park Service, and over fifty trail and land conservation agencies and non-profit organizations. Begun in 1999, the initiative was designed to create "a coordinated greenway and trail network that will help conserve important resources, provide recreation and alternative transportation opportunities close to where people live, and connect communities throughout Massachusetts."
Rails with trails (RWT) are a small subset of rail trails in which a railway right-of-way remains in use by trains yet also has a parallel recreational trail. Hundreds of kilometers of RWTs exist in Canada, Europe, the United States, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Dequindre Cut is a below-grade pathway, formerly a Grand Trunk Western Railroad line, located on the east side of Detroit, Michigan, just west of St. Aubin Street. Much of the Cut has been converted to a greenway; the colorful graffiti along the pathway has been left in place.
The Vancouver Greenway Network is a collection of greenways across Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Greenways are streets where pedestrians and cyclists are prioritized over motorized vehicles, through structures such as road closures and road diverters to prevent or limit motor vehicle traffic, widened sidewalk-promenades, narrowed road space, speed restrictions, bike lanes, raised sidewalks and speed bumps. The City of Vancouver hopes to create and maintain the trend of constructing new greenways to establish a network where, potentially, every citizen could access a city greenway within a 25-minute walking or a 10-minute cycling distance of their home.
Min Hi Line is a proposed linear park and shared-use path that would eventually re-purpose an active rail and agri-industrial corridor in the Longfellow community of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Modeled after successful projects like the Atlanta Beltline and New York High Line, it would feature an approximately 3-mile (4.8 km), shared-use pathway that traverses housing, retail, commercial buildings, gardens, playgrounds, and public art installments. Two pilot projects completed in 2018 and 2019 connect the Min Hi Line corridor to trail systems at its northern and southern ends.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
