About Greenways…

 What are greenways? Greenways are linear open spaces established along a natural corridor such as a river or stream course, or along a railroad or utility right of way, canal or scenic road. Greenways can also be natural or man made trails used for walking and hiking, rollerblading or biking. Recognizing the diversity of greenways, Rhode Island state law defines a greenway as a "corridor of protected open space managed for conservation, recreation or transportation purposes".

What do greenways do?
Greenways connect…they act as links between parks, nature reserves, wildlife habitats, or historic sites. They also connect people to the land, and communities to each other. Greenways typically have long perimeters and many points of intersection with the surrounding landscape--be it a rural natural area or a built urban environment. This makes it possible for wildlife and people to access the greenway at many points. Trails or bikeway greenways also connect people by affording alternative means for residents to travel between community facilities and destinations.

Logo of Greenways Council
Greenways also protect and preserve resources. Setting aside land and water in greenways helps insure that the legacy of natural and cultural resources so important to the quality of our environment and the character of our communities will be retained for future citizens.

Although the lines between them often blur, several broad categories or types of greenways can been defined.
What types of
greenways are there?		 Bikeways:  Bikeways are among the best known form of greenways. Rhode Island’s 15 mile East Bay Bikepath attracts over 2,500 users on peak summer days, ranking it among the state’s most popular outdoor attractions.  Bikeways, trails or foot paths can be established along abandoned rail lines, historic canal tow paths, and other public rights–of–way. In other situations, communities are finding ways for trails and bikeways to share the rights–of–way of active rail lines, streets and highways, and utility corridors. Such greenways offer transportation choices and recreational opportunities for communities that develop them. Beginning at the historic Kingston Station intermodal center, the South County Bikepath, now under construction, will offer new travel choices for commuters to the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus, and for South County's summer beach-goers to avoid traffic snarled highways.
Photo of Blackstone Valley Bike Path
Bikeway corridor greenways can also be linked together to create new and exciting   travel and tourism opportunities. The East Coast Greenway, being planned to connect major cities from Maine with Florida, will pass through Rhode Island. The first designated segment, the Coventry Greenway, is open; other segments--the Blackstone Bikeway, the Washington Secondary Bikeway, and the Trestle Trail---are being worked on.
Photo of hikers on a Trail Trails, either single or multi-use, offer a variety of recreational opportunities—hiking, mountain biking, horse-back riding—and can connect populated urban areas to large open space or reservations in outlying areas. Rhode Island’s North-South Trail, traverses 70 miles through rural western Rhode Island, offering hikers connections between eight State forested management areas. The Block Island Greenway offers a 14 mile hike through some of the island’s most lovely terrain.  Shorter loop trails are popular recreational destinations in many state and local parks and nature refuges around the state.
In urban areas, trails and paths can also offer transportation opportunities by linking neighborhoods to parks, shopping districts, schools, libraries, and other community facilities

.Photo of a path through a garden
Riverine greenways: Greenways created along river or stream corridors provide open space and public access to the water. Reserving or restoring a strip of vegetation along the banks captures runoff and filters-out pollutants that would otherwise enter the watercourse; and also helps to reduce flood velocities and heights by absorbing and detaining storm flows. By shading and anchoring the stream banks, riverine greenways also maintain the natural processes and biodiversity of the river, and provide habitat and migration routes for wildlife. Depending upon the arrangements under which they were created, natural riverine greenways may or may not provide public access and usage.

Greenways open up rivers that may have been so overgrown, walled-in, and concealed that people who have lived near them their whole lives are unaware of their history and importance, or even their existence. Although water quality may remain a detriment, improvements in water pollution abatement made during the past two decades are making the idea of river greenways a viable solution for reconnecting many communities to the rivers that flow through them.

Urban river greenways can include river walks and promenades, picnic areas, and, where water quality conditions allow, fishing and canoe access points. Buildings of historical significance, such as the old mills that are situated along many of Rhode Island’s urban rivers, can also be restored for new uses which conserve their heritage value.

River greenway projects are becoming focal points for conserving and revitalizing villages, urban neighborhoods, and city centers through which the rivers flow.    Several Rhode Island communities are creating greenways along river and stream corridors to  preserve scenic, natural and cultural qualities,  or   to restore and revitalize rivers that have suffered abuse and neglect over the decades. These projects include the Blackstone River National Heritage Corridor, the Pawtuxet River Valley Heritage Corridor, the Saugatucket River Heritage Corridor, the  Wood-Pawcatuck River system, and the Woonasquatucket River Greenway.

Wildlife corridors: Greenways can also link large tracts of open space established for wildlife conservation by federal, state, and local agencies, and private conservation groups. Wildlife refuges are seldom large enough to provide for the full life-cycle needs of wildlife species inhabiting them. Populations of some wildlife species may become isolated and fragmented and begin to decline. Greenway corridors linking large tracts of habitat provide a means for wildlife to move more freely within its natural range in order to meet its feeding, nesting and other needs. Wildlife corridors do need to be established carefully, however, to avoid creating routes for predatory or invasive species to access an isolated refuge, which may harbor rare or threatened species. Rhode Island state agencies are working to conserve land connecting and consolidating the large Arcadia, Nicholas Farm, and George Washington management areas in the western portion of the state.
Farm and forest greenbelts:  More and more rural communities are facing development pressures that threaten to transform their landscapes. By working with farmers and large forest landowners towns can create farm and forest greenbelts to preserve lands important to their communities’ sense of place and retain working farms as a part of their economies. While working farms and conserved private forest land may not offer public access, its conservation offers many other public benefits—watershed protection, wildlife habitat, local produce, forest products, scenic beauty, and avoidance of costs for the services that such lands would require if developed.

Photo of a Sun Flower

Where did the idea for greenways come from?

Greenways are not a new idea. As early as the 1860s, noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was among the first to propose what would later be called a greenway. As his firm worked on landmark parks such as New York City’s Central Park, landscaped the homes of the rich and famous of the time, and designed college campuses; Olmsted came to the view that the people who visited parks would never really get a full experience of natural unless he could find some way to link city parks to one another. He invented the idea of a parkway, to act as an introduction to the park and as a connector to other parks and places of scenic interest. The best known Olmsted "greenway" is Boston’s "Emerald Necklace" that links Boston Common with Franklin Park via the Back Bay Fens and the Muddy River in a 4.5 mile arc around the city.

Image of RI first Greenways Plan circa 1903
Rhode Island's first
 greenways plan--1903

 Other designers embraced the greenway concept and it evolved throughout the later part of the nineteenth century. It was given impetus by the so-called "City Beautiful Movement" which sprang up following the 1883 Colombian Exposition in Chicago. American cities of this era were struggling with rapid population and industrial growth inspired by waves of European immigration, and were searching for means to deal with overcrowding and blight. To reduce congestion, and provide recreation for swelling populations, many turn of the century American cities planned comprehensive systems of parkways, river and stream belts, and boulevards linking parks, reservations, civic institutions, and public squares together. Rhode Island’s Metropolitan Park Commission created a visionary1903 plan for a comprehensive parkway and reservation system for metropolitan Providence.. The pieces of this "greenway" plan which were implemented give present-day Providence residents some of their nicest places to enjoy nature and scenery.

As the twentieth century unfolded, first war, then Depression consumed the nation’s attention and resources and urban greenway and park systems fell by the wayside. The parkway concept mustered a small revival in the form of the Merit and other   parkways, but, after World War II was the concept of an aesthetic motorway was quickly supplanted by the more utilitarian expressways and freeways, which catered to the nation’s growing fixations with the automobile and speed.

Just over a decade ago, in 1987, the Report of the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors refocused attention on the possibilities inherent in greenways. It called for creation of a nationwide system of greenways lacing the country together, and tying cities to countryside. Greenways advocates in cities and towns around the nation have heeded the report’s call for a "prairie fire of grassroots efforts", and a number of states, including Rhode Island, have begun working with local proponents to plan and implement statewide greenway systems.
As our nation prepares to enter the 21st century, it is revisiting a 19th century idea---greenways. The simple concept of linking together our parks, civic centers, historic sites, nature preserves, and communities with ribbons of green is taking on new urgency as the country strives to preserve its rural lands and revive its urban places.

Photo of walkway, benchs and trees in a park
Logo of the RI Greeways Council This information about greenways is provided as a public service by the Rhode Island Greenways Council.