(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
We all know it’s an amazing place to ride, now let’s make it official: The Banks-Vernonia Trail has been nominated for the 2016 Rail-Trail Hall of Fame.
The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is hosting the competition. The polls opened earlier this week and you have until the end of June 15th to place your vote.
Advertisement
The B-V (as we call it around here) is up against the GHS Swap Rabbit Trail in South Carolina, the Hudson Valley Trail Network in New York, the Rio Grade Trail in Colorado and the Shelby Farms Greenline in Tennessee.
There are currently 29 trails in the Hall of Fame. The Springwater Corridor, which was inducted in 2011, is currently the only Oregon trail among them.
Apparently you can vote as often as you’d like, so here’s that link one more time. Let’s do this.
— Jonathan Maus, (503) 706-8804 – jonathan@bikeportland.org
Our work is supported by subscribers. Please become one today.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Voted. If the Springwater can make it on the list, surely this trail can. This is a beautiful trail, too bad it is for recreation only.
If you live in PDX proper maybe, but you do know that people live outside of Portland right? Like in Banks and Vernonia and places in between and it does get commuter use.
I know of one fellow who uses part BV for his commute.
Just voted myself. The Rails to Trails Conservacy website does encourage you to vote as often as possible. Voting closes at 11:59pm ET / 8:59pm PT on Wed. 15 June. The Hudson Valley (NY) entry includes the Walkway over the Hudson (River) bridge at Poughkeepsie, NY.
Wow, a bike path that has as many obvious flaws as the Springwater is in their hall of fame? Their standards may be lower than the League of American Bicyclists. To LAB’s credit, they have openly acknowledged that their awards are of an aspirational nature, so they get a partial pass on their version of grade inflation.
Banks-Vernonia is nothing compared to Salmonberry if it were restored. If Idaho can restore Coeur d’Alene Trail and Route of the Hiawatha, Oregon can restore Salmonberry.
Riding through nature is okay as long as there is a blacktop path instead of dirt? Do you work for the asphalt industry?
As I recall from my travels there, the Coeur D’Alene trail is also capping a heavy metals contamination zone caused by a century or so of mining and using the tailings for rail ballast. Beautiful area, but pay attention to all the “don’t drink the water from these lovely streams” warnings.
Voted for the B-V. It’s a great trail, and Oregon can use more encouragement in rail-trail development. Oregon lags far behind its neighbors Idaho and Washington have in trail mileage (not to mention MN and WI, which each have hundreds of miles of rail trails). There’s a lot of potential in Oregon, including Salmonberry and the proposed Portland-Astoria route, and I’d like to see a lot more happen.
Reminder: the deadline to vote is this Wed. the 15th!
By the way. Kudos to Willamette Week for last week’s article and photos of the Salmonberry Trail corridor. Great read. And I’m saving their map of the corridor.
Story says the estimates are between $18 & $54 million. Totally worth it. But does Oregon have the will to do it?
$54 million builds an awful lot of pedestrian signals and bike lanes.
Less than one interchange in Woodburn.
It’s official: the Hudson Valley trail network in NY State, has won induction into the Rail-Trail National Hall of Fame. The network includes the Walkway Over the Hudson Bridge. Details at the Rails to Trails Conservancy website: http://www.railstotrails.org