Transcript exported from the video version of this episode - Note that it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:23 - 00:00:25:02
Brent Buice
Across the trail, we saw these folks in their backyard and this was kind of down the embankment from the trail. And I noticed the sign and they built their own gate so that they could access the trail directly from their own backyard. And I said, wow, gee, where'd you get this sign? She said, Well, I used to work for the city of Charleston and was instrumental in getting this park funded way back when.

00:00:25:02 - 00:00:40:22
Brent Buice
And I was I'm so excited to live on it now. And I had one of these old signs in my, you know, like office file cabinet that they put up in recognition of the greenway on their gate. And I just love that people feel a lot of pride of place when they live next to a facility like this.

00:00:41:08 - 00:01:12:25
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that is Brent Buice manager of South Carolina and Georgia for the East Coast Greenway Alliance. And we are having a discussion about the East Coast Greenway and his area there in Georgia, in South Carolina, and what really is a greenway and and how they are really pulling together this amazing 3000 mile route from Maine all the way down to the tip of Florida.

00:01:13:16 - 00:01:26:28
John Simmerman
So without further ado, let's get right to it with Brent Buice. Brent, it is an absolute joy to have you here on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.

00:01:27:19 - 00:01:29:10
Brent Buice
Thank you so much. Good to see you again, John.

00:01:29:27 - 00:01:45:09
John Simmerman
Yes, good to see you again. You have been featured before in some of my video work back in 2018 when I was in Savannah, Georgia for the Seeing You, I believe you had mentioned it was you, 26. Is that about sound about right?

00:01:45:25 - 00:01:46:10
Brent Buice
That's right.

00:01:46:16 - 00:01:59:05
John Simmerman
I remember that. So well. You and so you were leading a workshop, a bike workshop, and I was trying to remember the name of it. Was it like riding through back in time?

00:01:59:05 - 00:02:19:22
Brent Buice
Do you regret riding through history, living here and riding my bike around? You realized pretty quickly, if you pay attention to architecture and, you know, transportation policy, that Savannah is kind of like an ice core sample, you know, from the Arctic where the city was founded on the banks of the river in 1733 and then grew due south.

00:02:20:04 - 00:02:30:12
Brent Buice
So every 5 to 7 blocks you travel south, you're traveling towards the present and wanted to show that off. It's a pretty unique setup compared to a lot of cities.

00:02:31:00 - 00:02:48:20
John Simmerman
I love it. I love in fact, you know, what I think I'm going to do is rerelease that video here on YouTube so that folks can see that. So it'll be like a little flash back in time. One of the things that I love to have my guests do is give them the floor and just have them introduce themselves.

00:02:48:20 - 00:02:52:05
John Simmerman
So let me turn it over to you. Who is Brant? Sure.

00:02:52:21 - 00:03:42:24
Brent Buice
Yeah, I'm pretty much a Georgia boy. I'm coming to you from Savannah, where I've lived since 2014. Prior to Savannah, I lived in the college town of Athens, Georgia, co dogs and before that grew up in the kind of undifferentiated suburbs of metro Atlanta. So I consider myself a Georgian. I got into these issues in college. Like a lot of people, I was riding my bike and walking and using transit as a broke college student and had sort of an articulated frustration with sprawl development and that and the soullessness of oceanic parking lots and chain restaurants and retail from where I grew up, and seeing a different kind of set up in Athens where they

00:03:42:24 - 00:04:09:21
Brent Buice
preserved their pre automobile business district and then the campus itself that was leafy and old and very walkable. That contrast got my head swirling on those issues and it was really a couple of books. And then one event put on by a local advocacy group that changed the trajectory of my personal and certainly professional life forever. And it was the geography of nowhere.

00:04:09:21 - 00:04:32:20
Brent Buice
And Jane Jacobs forced a very eye opening. And then I attended an event in Athens called the Tour de Sprawl in 2000, two way back when, and it was put on by a local advocacy group called Bike Athens. It was still out there. Shout out to bike Athens dot org doing the good work to support transportation choices in Athens Park County, Georgia.

00:04:33:04 - 00:05:00:28
Brent Buice
And I really had a lot of light bulbs go off about development land use. Why aren't there bike lanes and sidewalks and protected paths? Greenways to make it easier for people to get around in a way that doesn't require a privately owned automobile? And I remember just grinning ear to ear and thinking, Wow, now I've got a vocabulary to to describe my frustrations and the things that I'm seeing that I didn't feel good about.

00:05:02:02 - 00:05:25:10
Brent Buice
And of course, this is 2002 and we were poised to begin a second war in Iraq that clearly oil was a big part of that. And so this was micro issues of my own experience growing up in the suburbs, being connected to issues of global politics, geopolitics and warfare and strife. So really kind of the full gamut. Right.

00:05:25:10 - 00:05:49:09
Brent Buice
And it felt very important to understand these things. So I went up to a volunteer, I'll never forget, and I said, Hey, this event was so cool. How do I get involved? And she sheepishly looked at the ground and looked at me and said, Hey, you want to be on the board of directors? And as a young man with no background working in nonprofits, I jumped in headfirst and low.

00:05:49:09 - 00:06:00:25
Brent Buice
Six years later, I was the president of the organization, and then that put me on a path that led to working for the statewide bike advocacy group that ultimately led to me working for the alliance.

00:06:00:25 - 00:06:24:19
John Simmerman
Now I'm going to pull up the the website here of the place that started it all for you, right? Athens Yeah. And again yeah that's like Athens dot org. Yeah. I think the very first time I met you, you were with the state advocacy organization. And what year did you join the East Coast Greenway Alliance 2017.

00:06:24:19 - 00:06:51:10
Brent Buice
It was after I had moved to Savannah and they had gotten to a position to hire their first ever dedicated staff person just for advocacy in South Carolina and Georgia. And it just worked out with timing. I moved to Savannah for personal reasons. I was already here running the statewide bike advocacy group for Georgia and so was certainly aware of the East Coast Greenway as the project for the entire coast of Georgia.

00:06:51:10 - 00:07:19:11
Brent Buice
And a lot of people are like Georgia has a coast. Yes, we do 160 miles long, gorgeous barrier islands and some really cool historic towns on the mainland. Lots of beautiful rivers and marshes. Well worth a visit. But yeah, a lot of people don't don't think about Georgia having a coast. And if we do in fact, have beaches and the Greenway connects all those mainland cities Savannah, Darian, Brunswick and St Mary's being kind of the chief among them.

00:07:19:29 - 00:07:41:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And I, you and I were talking about this before we hit the record button. As part of my Savannah trip, I was able to ride a two day ride starting in cash. I guess it was what's on the other side of the bridge from from Charleston.

00:07:43:01 - 00:07:47:25
Brent Buice
On the far side, the north side. That would be the town of Mount Pleasant. It's kind of a sister city of Charleston.

00:07:48:01 - 00:08:10:22
John Simmerman
That's where we started was over on Mount Pleasant. And we there was a development over there that we wanted to take a look at. And and then we rode across that bridge. Of course, that's one of the notoriously dangerous bridges, or at least it was back in 2018 when I was there and then into into Charleston and then and then, you know, made our way through the Lowcountry there.

00:08:10:22 - 00:08:13:25
John Simmerman
Is that is that correct? Is that the way you describe it, The Lowcountry?

00:08:14:10 - 00:08:17:26
Brent Buice
Yeah, absolutely. From Charleston to the south is the Lowcountry.

00:08:18:22 - 00:08:41:21
John Simmerman
And then heading south to making your way to Savannah. So it was a two day trip. I think there was between 12 or 14 of us and a did additional people would come and go and we did go through Buford and we did have some mayors meet up with us and, you know, chat with us and all that kind of good stuff.

00:08:41:27 - 00:08:56:09
John Simmerman
But I was really impressed by segments of that route because it was on the East Coast Greenway. So why don't you explain a little bit about what the Greenway actually is?

00:08:57:02 - 00:09:28:14
Brent Buice
Mm hmm. Sure. So the Greenway is an ambitious vision for a 3000 mile corridor of connected multi-use paths, paved asphalt, concrete boardwalk and protected bike lanes and urban settings with adjacent sidewalk. And we're really trying to stitch together a continuous usable route from Callus Main all the way to Key West, Florida. The vision has been around for over 25 years.

00:09:28:14 - 00:09:53:16
Brent Buice
It's about one third complete. We want the entire route to be on fully trafficked, separated, all ages and abilities type facilities with a default being a, you know, 10 to 14 foot Maltese out goes by a lot of names. Right? A shared use path, a greenway, a rail to trail where it's built on an old rail corridor. So it has a lot of different looks and feels depending on where you are.

00:09:54:03 - 00:10:21:02
Brent Buice
The Greenway is one thing in Manhattan and another thing in rural coastal Georgia and then runs kind of a whole gamut in between. And so a lot of it's been developed in the Northeast and in Florida. My region, which is Georgia and South Carolina, is definitely the furthest behind in terms of completing segments of the Greenway. So I usually describe it to people who are coming here to check it out as it it's the good, the bad, the ugly and the missing.

00:10:21:28 - 00:10:44:22
Brent Buice
You know, there are really, really nice segments that end abruptly. And if you really wanted or needed to continue walking, running or biking from that point south or north, you may be on a, you know, divided four lane rural highway, sharing the lane with fast moving logging trucks. So there's a lot of work to be done, particularly in the rural areas between the cities.

00:10:45:07 - 00:11:07:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And, and as you mentioned, you know, there's waterways as so sometimes you're you're making your way across waterways and sometimes you're you're literally on a nice, paved, separated path. And this looks like it's following along a canal of some sort or irrigation, you know.

00:11:07:12 - 00:11:16:18
Brent Buice
Yeah, that's in Buford. This is a really beautiful ten mile rail trail that is called the Spanish Moss Trail connects Buford and the town of Port Royal.

00:11:17:03 - 00:11:21:19
John Simmerman
Yeah. And as I mentioned, sometimes you're making your way across bridges like this.

00:11:22:25 - 00:11:38:10
Brent Buice
Which bridge? It's called the Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge that connects Charleston, the historic peninsula of Charleston, to Mount Pleasant. And that's been a barrier protected path since the mid 2000, one of the oldest pieces and very beloved in the area.

00:11:39:16 - 00:12:00:12
John Simmerman
So this is I don't want to call this well, I guess this is a it's kind of a national thing in the sense that it's an East Coast greenway. You know, like you said, all the way from Maine to to Florida. But so this is a really a large, ambitious initiative and effort. And so there's a headquarters office.

00:12:00:12 - 00:12:02:03
John Simmerman
Where is that headquarters office?

00:12:02:25 - 00:12:27:18
Brent Buice
Sure. The headquarters is in Durham, North Carolina, which is approximately the midpoint for the entire route. And so a little over half of our team there are to fact check me, but I believe there are 13 of a total and over a little over half of them are in the headquarters. And then the rest of us, our field staff like me, who are assigned to the advocacy for a state or a couple of states of the states are smaller.

00:12:29:04 - 00:12:30:21
John Simmerman
And what do you actually do?

00:12:31:23 - 00:13:09:16
Brent Buice
A lot of cheerleading. A lot of going to meetings, talking to social and civic groups, elected officials, and sitting in on this public information, open house type meetings that South Carolina Dot, Georgia, dot and county public works departments are holding, where if they're touching any part of our corridor, we want to make sure that if they're widening a highway, which they probably shouldn't be doing, but that's often the work that's happening, or resurfacing a road or a new developments coming in where we might be able to get, you know, all or some of the East Coast Greenways segment developed there.

00:13:09:16 - 00:13:39:19
Brent Buice
We want to make sure that we've got a voice that is clear and persistent, polite, but diplomatically encouraging them to make sure that the Greenway is part of their plans. And then we share lots of information and resources, certainly with the new infrastructure bill and all this funding that that's being distributed to the states, there are a lot of opportunities, an alphabet soup of funding programs for people to navigate, and we help them do that specifically so that they can build sections of the Greenway.

00:13:40:06 - 00:13:50:08
John Simmerman
Right? Yeah. Has the route actually been mapped out? So we know roughly where the route is going to go.

00:13:51:02 - 00:14:25:01
Brent Buice
The vast majority of it has been mapped out and we've got it at least at the county and MPO level. It's been formally recognized in every coastal county of Georgia and South Carolina. We're hoping that eventually we'll get some state level by in some of our neighboring states like Florida and North Carolina, have really robust and impressive D.O.T. managed aspirational visions for multi jurisdictional kind of trails that connect cities and right now, Georgia and South Carolina do not have those kind of plans.

00:14:25:11 - 00:14:34:16
Brent Buice
And the East Coast Greenway would be a really big part of that plan, obviously being the route linking all of the coastal cities in both states.

00:14:35:04 - 00:14:56:01
John Simmerman
Right. And then for the the entire route, you had mentioned that you know, Georgia and South Carolina are slightly behind pretty much the mapping and the routing is has been taken taking place along the further north and further south into Florida already.

00:14:56:22 - 00:15:07:23
Brent Buice
Yeah, definitely. There's really sophisticated level routing and planning that's even gotten down into the corridor alignment. The further northeast you go, the trigger that is.

00:15:08:08 - 00:15:52:03
John Simmerman
Got to go to and it seems like there is, you know, it's kind of cobbling these things together, as you mentioned earlier and we talked about that it could be an old rail trail corridor, could be, you know, following, you know, the waterline could be on street. So it seems like, yeah, that that opportunity you'd mentioned, you know, we shouldn't be building more freeway miles highway miles but if that does happen, I'm wondering if you are opportunistic in saying, okay, well, by the way, if you're doing that, we need a you know, a shared use path over here.

00:15:53:09 - 00:16:03:20
John Simmerman
Is there an opportunity for us to do that? Do you is that sort of the game that you're in is somehow looking to try to leverage those dollars, especially if they're federal dollars coming in to the state level?

00:16:04:10 - 00:16:32:06
Brent Buice
Absolutely. Yeah. We're we're as opportunistic as is appropriate. And sometimes, you know, we'll have a vision that's been in place, at least conceptually in a county, and they really want the Greenway to be on this abandoned rail line or some other corridor. But there's been zero political will or funding or movement towards developing that corridor. And it seems like a really heavy lift politically, it might just not be palatable.

00:16:32:12 - 00:16:57:03
Brent Buice
So when so for instance, Camden County, Georgia, the D.O.T. was widening a highway to four lanes, mostly as a very practical measure for hurricane evacuation for the coastal communities. And since they were going to be doing that work, it made a lot of sense for us to advocate for a ten foot concrete multi-use tower adjacent to that. And we were successful.

00:16:57:03 - 00:17:13:16
Brent Buice
It took some goading and several different local elected officials to let the D.O.T. know that that mattered to them. But ultimately the D.O.T. agreed. They slightly adjusted their cross section plans and we ended up getting almost a four mile stretch of the Greenway completed through that project a couple of years ago.

00:17:14:14 - 00:17:39:00
John Simmerman
So I see in this this particular photo here, it looks like we've got this public meeting open house for a bridge, the Darian Bridge. And I see the, the Je dot emblem there so clearly like in the situation that you just described there, you're, you're looking for those opportunities to partner with the dots, the South Carolina dot and the Georgia dot.

00:17:39:00 - 00:17:50:28
John Simmerman
Has that partnership evolved over these years since you've been, you know, on board with the Greenway? You guys feel like you're in a good working relationship and things are starting to click now.

00:17:51:26 - 00:18:14:20
Brent Buice
Yeah, when I first started, there was a fair amount of heavy blinking and expressionless stares of like, what? What is the greenway? What are you talking about? Right? But through just persistence and the fact that it has been incorporated into all the comprehensive plans for every county that's on the coast, they can't ignore it. And so it's been a little bit easier.

00:18:14:20 - 00:18:39:26
Brent Buice
We still have to push pretty hard on a project by project basis just to make sure that they're meeting our design standards, because we do want this to be all ages and abilities, not just for Daredevil kind of roads and long distance, you know, adventure cyclists, although that's great, we want them to use it too. But we also want this to be something functional for people who live in that community.

00:18:40:02 - 00:18:54:22
Brent Buice
Maybe they only use a quarter mile of it for their kid to get to school, and we want to make sure that it's a facility that's appropriate for that. As much as it's appropriate for, you know, a couple long distance running the whole thing from the Florida. Yeah.

00:18:55:08 - 00:19:11:10
John Simmerman
It's I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, it brings up this this particular image here and taking a look at this gentleman who just completed a long distance route, as you just talked about. Talk a little bit about Avery here.

00:19:12:07 - 00:19:42:26
Brent Buice
Yeah. So this is Avery. And just about a week and a half ago, he reached the southernmost point as soon there. And as far as we know, he is the first person to even attempt, much less complete following the entire Greenway route by unicycle. I got to meet up with him in Savannah. A really remarkable young man, 19 years old, pretty cool, too, that there were so many news stories being generated just by how unique his adventure was.

00:19:43:14 - 00:20:05:25
Brent Buice
And he was intentionally raising money for the East Coast Greenway Alliance, which thank you very much Avery much appreciated and that that fundraising continues he he got roasted by Jimmy Fallon not by name but as one of Jimmy Fallon's final jokes about a week before he finished, he got referenced and I won't ruin the joke. The delivery is better by Fallon.

00:20:05:25 - 00:20:17:21
Brent Buice
Obviously, but the next day we got permission from Avery to kind of share that. And he was like, This was the greatest day of my life. I've been roasted by Jimmy Fallon. That's great. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

00:20:18:25 - 00:20:46:02
John Simmerman
And yeah, and to your point, though, you don't have to be like this adventure cyclist. You don't have to be somebody who's doing what Avery's doing of, you know, attacking a challenge. It can just be, you know, guilt going out for, you know, a utilitarian trip. It could be for recreation, it could be for your health, but it also could be just, you know, being able to get from one place to the next.

00:20:46:14 - 00:21:12:03
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that, because that's one of the recurring themes here on the Active Towns podcast and on the Active Towns channel in general is that our activity assets, these linear parks, if you will, these these pathways, these trails can serve multiple purposes. They're they're not they don't have to be just recreation. They can actually serve a utilitarian purpose.

00:21:12:11 - 00:21:27:25
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that from from your perspective and being able to communicate those benefits because there's a much greater return on investment, you know, to an asset that gets built if it can be multidimensional. Mm hmm.

00:21:28:05 - 00:21:58:05
Brent Buice
No, absolutely. And Brad, you bring that up. I mean, it has probably been the Central Communications challenge with particularly the older guard engineers at the Dottie's and even at the county level, that these kinds of multi-use paths that it's both and not either or. This is both a transportation and a recreation facility and not either or. Yeah. And so conveying that and showing that that can be the case has been ongoing work.

00:21:58:10 - 00:22:30:27
Brent Buice
And as people turn over, certainly as younger engineers are coming in, it's been less of a challenge to communicate that. But I think there's just been a lot of siloed thinking for many decades and the pots of money that your state Dottie's, compared to your departments of natural Resources, who might control a fund like Recreational Trails Program where it's in the name, but then they've used they've been picking from all these different pots of money to build the same kind of facilities that are meeting all of these needs.

00:22:31:11 - 00:22:57:02
Brent Buice
And certainly anywhere that the Greenway runs through the exurbs, the suburbs or any urbanized area, it's a critical part of the transportation infrastructure for people walking, biking, using a system of devices. But then also as somebody might be biking from their neighborhood across the Intracoastal Waterway, as shown here in Myrtle Beach to go to a drug store or a grocery store, there might be somebody go in for a run.

00:22:57:07 - 00:23:05:19
Brent Buice
You know, it's strictly recreational activity. They're on the same facility at the same time. So it's yeah, it's both are happening just with the same amount of concrete.

00:23:06:15 - 00:23:31:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. So the reason why I pulled this image up was just that. So thank you very much for, you know, blending that right into your discussion is yeah, these are critical connections and they are multi-dimensional and serve many different purposes. So there's that utilitarian role as well as that recreational role and in and really helping get past barriers.

00:23:31:12 - 00:23:43:02
John Simmerman
And that's exactly what this pathway does with this bridge is you're able to get past a water barrier, which is absolutely crucial and essential. So who's the smiley person?

00:23:44:16 - 00:24:10:06
Brent Buice
This is my new direct supervisor and our new national Greenway director, Mrs. Allison Burson, who's been with the organization a little less than a year. Allison comes to us with a tremendous amount of expertise and experience. She was an assistant to the mayor of Seattle for many years and then and has a lot of life experience growing up in and around Boston, but had never been to the Southeast before.

00:24:10:14 - 00:24:26:27
Brent Buice
So just a week ago, I picked her up at the Charleston airport and we did a windshield slash walking and biking tour of all of the Greenway from North Myrtle Beach at the North Carolina border, all the way down to St Mary's, Georgia, at the border with Florida.

00:24:27:12 - 00:24:53:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's great. I want to linger on this photo just for a moment longer because of the sign here of and pointing out that, yes, these trails, these pathways can be critical infrastructure, critical activity, assets as part of parks. They can literally be a linear park, but they could also run through a park, a regional park, a city park.

00:24:53:11 - 00:25:20:21
John Simmerman
And so one of the things that that I highlighted recently in a in a in a video was the connectivity through the various parks in Amsterdam and how those are critical utilitarian commuter routes for people on bikes. But at the same time, again, serving those multiple purposes, it's it's a park. And so you get that, you know, that you get that wellness aspect of it as as well.

00:25:20:27 - 00:25:36:05
John Simmerman
But critically you're able to get away from automobile exhaust and noise into the trees. And so you do have that that you know, connection to nature, which is so incredibly important. So I wanted to just point that out with this one tour.

00:25:36:05 - 00:25:56:07
Brent Buice
And I feel like in our rural areas and between the small towns in particular, that, you know, we talked about adventure riding and that's great. I love it personally. Now that I've got younger kids, I'm a little more cautious with my long distance riding. There's a lot more at stake, it feels like. And that's just the phase I am of my life.

00:25:56:17 - 00:26:37:29
Brent Buice
And I love these paths because they enable that kind of adventure while really mitigating the risks, the very serious risks that can come along with long distance bicycle touring with these kind of paths, a family with kids who know how to ride, but you don't want them on the shoulder of a highway, right? They can still go on that two or three day adventure between state parks and have this experience of a lifetime and this tremendous bonding, you know, within the family and with friends without having to take on that, you know, significant risk of that, that a lot of adventure cycling can have just as an inherent part of it.

00:26:38:14 - 00:26:51:22
John Simmerman
Right. Speak to this image right here. And and really the significance and the context, you know, of the trail as it exists in this particular location.

00:26:52:06 - 00:27:11:16
Brent Buice
Mm hmm. So this is the very southern end of the city of Myrtle Beach. You can see over Allison's head out of focus, another blue green trailhead. So the previous image you showed is the northern end of the city limit. And this is the southern end. So they've got just shy of 12 miles. Myrtle Beach took too many people.

00:27:11:16 - 00:27:32:28
Brent Buice
Surprise is actually the first and so far only city to have completed 100% of their part of the East Coast Greenway. They were really enthusiastic about the vision when they learned about it in the 2000. They had a lot of great local leaders who prioritized all the funding they had that could go to buy Ted so that they could get the Greenway done in segments.

00:27:33:08 - 00:27:59:10
Brent Buice
So what you see here is we're at the end point of the multi-use path and now you transition to the shoulder of that highway. You can see over to the right. And it is a very abrupt transition from a really good facility to essentially no facility. And so we're working to get the path extended. But this is pretty emblematic of what the Greenway travel route, which is kind of our temporary route.

00:27:59:10 - 00:28:25:00
Brent Buice
We publish if somebody wanted to ride or walk from Maine to Key West, as of today, we publish a route that shows all of our existing trails linked with the and I'm emphatically using scare quotes here. The safest available roads. Sometimes there's only one road available and in this case it's U.S. Highway 17 is the only publicly traversable highway between a lot of cities.

00:28:25:00 - 00:28:42:27
Brent Buice
And it's a bear. And it's really scary in some parts. And we we go out of our way to let prospective long distance users of the Greenway know that conditions fluctuate from really great to really terrifying. So you have to be prepared for that. And this, that picture really showcases that.

00:28:43:09 - 00:28:47:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. It's like we found a bike rack here.

00:28:48:11 - 00:29:15:15
Brent Buice
Yeah. So this is this to me shows how these kinds of facilities can also activate local businesses, local business districts. This is right off of the West. Ashley Greenway in the West Ashley neighborhood of Charleston. And we're on the back side, kind of where the dumpsters are of the shopping center over to the right, and there's a bakery and they are really excited that people can come from all these neighborhoods along about a nine mile corridor.

00:29:15:28 - 00:29:32:10
Brent Buice
The asphalt multi-use path is just off picture to the left. And, you know, they've got this colorful bike rack. It's clearly seen a lot of youth and they're so excited about people showing up by bike that they provide locks that you can go grab at the bar. So in case you showed up without your own.

00:29:32:24 - 00:29:33:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, that's great.

00:29:35:11 - 00:30:00:27
Brent Buice
And then this is across the trail. We saw these folks in their backyard and this was kind of down the embankment from the trail. And I noticed the sign and they built their own gate so that they could access the trail directly from their own back yard. And I said, wow, she where'd you get this sign? She said, Well, I used to work for the city of Charleston and was instrumental in getting this park funded way back when.

00:30:00:27 - 00:30:16:19
Brent Buice
And I was I'm so excited to live on it now. And I had one of these old signs in my, you know, like office file cabinet that they put up in recognition of the greenway on their gate. And I just love that people feel a lot of pride of place when they live next to a facility like this.

00:30:17:04 - 00:30:28:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like to say, you know, Todd, trail oriented development. And here, here you have a trail oriented residents. I love it, right?

00:30:28:10 - 00:30:28:24
Brent Buice
That's right.

00:30:29:08 - 00:30:57:06
John Simmerman
That's great. And I'm glad you mention that, too, because I did notice that of the the number of people who had properties abutting to the trail and putting their own gates in and really embracing that as a true asset, not only for the community but also for them personally and being able to, you know, want to be able to have have that easy access.

00:30:57:15 - 00:31:19:20
John Simmerman
Talk a little bit about that, because I think that's critical to the the magic of having a pathway, having a trail is having good connectivity. How were you sort of navigating that in terms of making sure that the connectivity is there so that you can maximize that utilitarian benefit? Mm hmm.

00:31:20:09 - 00:31:51:22
Brent Buice
Planners certainly understand that. And developers and in many other parts of the Greenway corridor in Northeast and in Florida, you see those connections happening automatically. What I can tell you and it's getting better, but the NIMBYism is strong in the Southeast. And what we have seen is this in retrospect, humorous, but in the moment deeply frustrating kind of story arc where a trail is proposed and maybe it's running behind people's property or in front of it too.

00:31:51:22 - 00:32:16:09
Brent Buice
Usually when it's behind that, you'll get a plurality of people who say absolutely no way, or I'll let you build this trail, but you have to, as the city or county put up a ten foot ugly chain link fence so that people don't come and steal my flat screen TV on their bike, which we'll put a we'll put a bookmark on that, a preposterous idea in the first place.

00:32:17:24 - 00:32:41:11
Brent Buice
But so a year or two will go by and then all of a sudden you start seeing these emails coming in to that city or county council person saying, why is this fence here? Why do I have to go a mile out of my way to get to this trail that I can see from my back porch and everybody just like rolls their eyes and pulls their hair out like you all insisted on that barricade when this was being proposed.

00:32:41:11 - 00:33:00:00
Brent Buice
Right. And then as soon as people see the trail, see that it's not filled with looting rioters, I don't know what they were imagining. Right. But they see it's filled with happy families and their neighbors enjoying a walk with their dog or a ride with their grandkids. Then they all want to put in a gate and start building bridges.

00:33:00:00 - 00:33:00:20
Brent Buice
But literally.

00:33:00:20 - 00:33:00:25
John Simmerman
And.

00:33:00:25 - 00:33:02:01
Brent Buice
Metaphorically, they.

00:33:02:01 - 00:33:03:19
John Simmerman
Want this one.

00:33:04:13 - 00:33:43:26
Brent Buice
Exactly. So it often starts off with maybe a slight majority feeling very wary and vicious, but then they come around and end up being the biggest champions. And what I would love, what would really save a lot of headache and time and hassle would be if we could just skip that unnecessary suspicion phase because all we have is mountains of proof from not just Georgia and South Carolina, but of course places around the world, certainly around the country, where every time one of these trails has been put in, it has been a net positive and a win win win, No matter what kind of factor or characteristic you're looking at.

00:33:44:02 - 00:34:03:01
Brent Buice
It's good for health, it's good for the climate, it's good for equity, it's good for access, it's good for people's mental health and well-being. And so if we could just go ahead and just scoot on past that resistance that's so unnecessary, that would be great. That's my plea to the world right now.

00:34:03:01 - 00:34:14:01
John Simmerman
And in this particular image, this this may not be of Savannah, but it certainly reminds me of the images of of my stay in Savannah.

00:34:14:16 - 00:34:35:09
Brent Buice
Oh, very much. Yes. That was the recent part of the tour, Allison, there on the left. And we're with some local advocacy partners to the right. Really leading the tour is Kayla Brown, who's with our a wonderful partner organization of ours, Bike Walk Savannah, which as the name suggests, is the advocacy group for bicycle pedestrian issues in the city of Savannah.

00:34:35:20 - 00:34:38:18
Brent Buice
So that's one of the iconic squares there in the background.

00:34:38:26 - 00:34:40:28
John Simmerman
So it is. Savannah Oh, very.

00:34:40:28 - 00:34:41:12
Brent Buice
Much so.

00:34:41:12 - 00:35:16:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. It was correct. Yes. Yes. And here's and here's another view on the waterway here. So getting back to your point, though, I'm glad you mentioned that in terms of hoping to skip past that resistance phase. Reflect on that a little bit from, you know, from 2017 to now. Does it seem like things are moving faster? Does it seem like, you know, it's not bogged down as much, you know, in that resistance phase, or is it moving quicker or is it still just is is difficult?

00:35:17:10 - 00:35:41:24
Brent Buice
It's not as difficult, ironically, as the the blip of the pandemic kind of showed us that it reset a lot of municipal and county work. You know, projects got slowed down and things weren't happening for a couple of years as they shouldn't have been. But what people found during that time is that they really needed to be outside.

00:35:41:24 - 00:36:01:10
Brent Buice
They wanted to be outside. And having these kinds of linear parks were essential for everyone's sanity, mental and physical well-being and so the resistance has stopped and and now people are seeing like, no, this is a good thing. That's not a nice to have. This is a need to have.

00:36:01:10 - 00:36:40:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you look at these, these images that we're scrolling through right here and I'm glad you mentioned the pandemic. Is that. Yes, I mean, that that was sort of like this this grand reset globally of just how important being able to have access to high quality outdoor activities for our mental health and and that and our physical health being able to to have access to places, safe places, beautiful places to be able to to walk and bike and be able to get some fresh air and and being able to have access to beautiful scenes like this.

00:36:41:21 - 00:37:09:14
Brent Buice
Yeah. This is unfortunately right now a bit of a cul de sac for the greenway. And this is in Saint Mary's, the Saint Mary's River. So across the river is Florida, and this is our southern boundary here. And this is the departure point to go to Cumberland Island National Seashore, which has a ferry. The only way to get to that primeval island, highly recommended is if you've never been here all horses.

00:37:09:14 - 00:37:31:20
Brent Buice
It's just amazing. And right now we're in a bit of a limbo waiting for a ferry service that will be roll on walk on service, hopefully at least a couple of trips every weekday that will link St Mary's in Fernandina Beach so that we can avoid having to route people a dozen miles to the west on U.S. 17.

00:37:32:04 - 00:37:54:29
Brent Buice
If you are a lone or small group of touring cyclists right now, you would get to this point and be stuck without a fairly expensive private chartered boat or, you know, a or unless you had your own kayak with you and wanted to do that. So we're waiting on some of these really key linkages to activate a lot of the Greenway and some in some key areas.

00:37:54:29 - 00:38:06:16
Brent Buice
You know, sometimes the barriers are our nature and sometimes they're manmade. Right? We've we've built interstates or freight rail and in some cases we just have a lot of rivers we have to get across.

00:38:07:04 - 00:38:13:18
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Good point. Well, it's a beautiful called us act of sorts. That's exactly right.

00:38:15:23 - 00:38:38:06
Brent Buice
So this is meeting with the good folks of Saint Mary's to talk about how we can get past that. This is over my shoulder is Robert Barto, who is my counterpart for Florida. He's our Florida coordinator. And then to the far right is a city councilman, Dave Reilly, for the city of Saint Mary's. And they've already dedicated money to subsidize that ferry service.

00:38:38:13 - 00:39:01:13
Brent Buice
And we're just getting some kind of logistical kinks worked out. And fingers crossed, the alliance will be announcing the beginning of that ferry service very soon, so that that will go from a cul de sac on both sides to an hour long, gorgeous ferry ride that you can just roll your bike right onto and see dolphins and the fearful horses on the southern shores of Cumberland Island.

00:39:01:26 - 00:39:04:28
Brent Buice
I've done it as a charter and it's a really special experience.

00:39:05:15 - 00:39:50:27
John Simmerman
Wow. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. You know, we mentioned a little bit of, you know, sort of that kneejerk reaction of NIMBYism and, you know, trying to or not not trying to. I mean, there oftentimes it's based in fear. It's it's based in a misperception of what is there and and what might happen from it. And you just mentioned, you know, city council member there is part of that this particular group and I like to say that a trail and a pathway is something that, you know, all spectrums of the political world can actually get behind.

00:39:51:29 - 00:40:15:09
John Simmerman
They're just there's an incredible return on investment. You know, for for trails and pathways. I can't remember. It might have been Keith Loflin back when he was in charge of the rails to trails Conservancy. You know, said to me, you know, hey, a trail is something that everyone can get behind, you know, regardless of their political leanings and spectrum.

00:40:15:09 - 00:40:29:23
John Simmerman
Are you seeing that? Are you seeing, you know, that sort of thing where you just right left, you know, blue, red, you can just kind of throw all that out. I mean, anybody can get behind this concept of the East Coast Greenway.

00:40:31:03 - 00:41:09:04
Brent Buice
To an extent. I, of course, want to be careful here. I mean, there's bipartisan support for seeing the trails on the ground and everyone loves to come out for the celebration and the ribbon cutting where it falls apart as when you talk about the dedicated public investment in these kinds of facilities and, you know, somewhat moving around through our budget, some of our priorities about how we invest in transportation infrastructure and with a sliver, of course, of what we invest in highway widening and maintenance for the interstate system.

00:41:09:28 - 00:41:17:22
Brent Buice
We could finish the entire Greenway in a matter of a few years, but not everybody agrees on that being a top priority.

00:41:18:15 - 00:41:59:11
John Simmerman
What's interesting, though, is that oftentimes I hear, you know, regardless of the political spectrum, a desire to have high quality parks, well-maintained infrastructure. I mean, these are, you know, and suddenly you're like, okay, well, yeah, that's what we're talking about. Let's build really good stuff and let's maintain it well. So we need to, you know, budget that. And so yeah, it, I guess it's, it's the challenge of when it does come to budgeting the construction and the maintenance, you know, that has to come from somewhere so that.

00:41:59:18 - 00:42:23:25
Brent Buice
And there's a little bit of sticker shock. I mean like everything with inflation and even during the pandemic, we saw this with the supply chain issues, the price of concrete in particular was sky high. And so some of the estimates and kind of scoping estimates that that community saw for a mile or two of multi-use path, it raised some eyebrows for sure.

00:42:24:02 - 00:42:54:02
Brent Buice
But then, you know, I'm on the other side. I'm thinking like, okay, sure, but then no one's eyebrows are raised when the headline comes out that the $600 million highway interchange is now going to cost $850 million, everyone just kind of shrugs and says, oh, that's the way it goes, right? So the disparity between acknowledging that just because this infrastructure costs a little bit more doesn't mean it's not worth doing, which we fully internalize as four major kind of highway project.

00:42:54:13 - 00:42:59:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, and it looks like we do have a little bit of a ribbon cutting here or something.

00:42:59:18 - 00:43:21:04
Brent Buice
So budget director there in the middle, this was the ribbon cutting back in 2018, I believe, for that trailhead in Myrtle Beach. And it had, as you can see, people were really excited about it. The state lawmakers, a lot of locals and many advocates who had been working on this project for years, you know, very gratifying to them to see this finally happen.

00:43:21:17 - 00:43:52:09
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and here's a great shot to of, you know, exemplifying what we were talking about earlier is that yeah, sometimes it's it's not a trail through the middle of, of nature. Sometimes it is, you know, a, you know, wider shared use path multi-use path along a roadway. How much of the the length would you predict or estimate will end up being something like this?

00:43:53:13 - 00:43:59:15
John Simmerman
The South Carolina and the Georgia, you know sector.

00:44:00:20 - 00:44:23:17
Brent Buice
The coast of Georgia is extremely rural. Eight out of ten Georgians live 4 hours away in the greater metro Atlanta area. So unlike a lot of the East Coast states, our population center is not coastal. It's a little different in South Carolina. So I'd say probably 60% is going to look like that in South Carolina and more like 80% in Georgia.

00:44:23:23 - 00:44:50:00
Brent Buice
Just because the mainland coast is not very populated, beautiful national forests and protected wilderness areas. So it's very quiet, but there just aren't a lot of population centers in coastal Georgia. And we can pull that last picture up. There's it's pretty clever of this town. So this is in Saint Mary's. It's the city councilman there on the right, Dave Riley, who is in that restaurant picture.

00:44:50:11 - 00:45:22:00
Brent Buice
And you can see the two tons of pavement. So this was Saint Mary's is a very small city that doesn't have a huge infrastructure budget. They already had sidewalk along this local road and they wanted to meet the East Coast Greenways design standards, which are ASCO standards and active standards for a multi-use path, you know, ten feet. So they just doubled the width of their sidewalk and were able to create a ten foot multi-use path that people could safely pass each other, ride side by side conversationally.

00:45:22:16 - 00:45:39:22
Brent Buice
So I thought that was a really clever way to work with. You've got right you don't have to go build a brand new trail that requires all kinds of, you know, substrate construction and things like that. It's like they've already got this right of way. The city already owns. There's already five feet there. Let's just double the width.

00:45:39:22 - 00:45:42:26
Brent Buice
And now we've got ourselves a multi-use effort and a very small town.

00:45:44:00 - 00:46:13:09
John Simmerman
I'm really glad you mentioned that, too, because you know, that's one of the the easy things that you can do. I mean, talk about decreasing some costs. You don't have to go through all of the same level of, you know, separation over studies. And it's like like you said in it's, you know, a higher efficiency in terms of just being able to say, hey, we're just going to expand this and widen this.

00:46:13:19 - 00:46:17:28
John Simmerman
And I'm assuming that ten feet is your your minimum width.

00:46:18:12 - 00:46:45:19
Brent Buice
In a very rural area. We will allow it to go down to eight feet, but that's very specific to highly rural areas where you're not expecting a tremendous amount of traffic. Those sections of trail would be linkages really between populated areas. But certainly in an urban area, ten, 12, even 14 feet, depending on how how densely populated it is and how many people you could expect to use that on a daily basis.

00:46:46:03 - 00:46:53:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. People are oftentimes asking me how wide their multi-use paths should be. And I say wider.

00:46:54:19 - 00:47:01:29
Brent Buice
Right, Because if you make it, if you build it well, people will use it and then it will just get more popular from there. Absolutely.

00:47:02:05 - 00:47:29:24
John Simmerman
Yeah. I also say if it's going to be a paved, you know, if it's going to have a paved section include on either side or on at least one side, an area of crushed aggregate or softer surface natural surface for runners. Because honestly, you know, folks who are running, will I would prefer to be on the natural surface versus the, you know, the paved surface.

00:47:30:02 - 00:47:47:06
John Simmerman
And so you're able to actually get even more bang for your buck out of that. You know, that real estate by, you know, having that, you know, ten, 12, 14 foot paved section and then another, you know, four feet or whatever of natural surface. So that's just.

00:47:47:06 - 00:47:55:02
Brent Buice
Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I mean, you have, you know, gravel bike riders, mountain bike riders who would just prefer a little bit of.

00:47:55:02 - 00:47:55:22
John Simmerman
Texture.

00:47:56:12 - 00:48:06:22
Brent Buice
And then, you know, kind of specific maybe to the Deep South. And you've got folks who are riding horses as well. And could be serious. And yeah, it would absolutely be a useful horse trail.

00:48:07:06 - 00:48:13:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes we are on street. So talk a little bit about how that this is handled.

00:48:14:17 - 00:48:44:27
Brent Buice
Yeah. So this is in downtown Savannah. This is a ribbon cutting from a few years ago or the bike lane already existed. This is one of our North-South corridors to get the major one used by bicycle commuters, including myself. And they finally painted it green. They did not make it physically protected or buffered, but they did have the green paint, which I can tell you has significantly cut down on how many out of town tourists are driving in the bike lane, which was a really big problem before.

00:48:45:14 - 00:49:22:06
Brent Buice
Ironically, because the bike lane was such a generous with people, saw it as a narrow car lane and we're using it to pass people. So the green paint is really help. We want every foot of the greenway to be physically protected, but our advocacy, we have short and medium term goals as well for an urban street. If this is part of where people are traveling through Savannah, if we can make the bike lane that's there even marginally safer by adding green paint, then that's something we want to celebrate as the greenway and as the advocacy group in Savannah did.

00:49:22:12 - 00:49:45:26
Brent Buice
And then on rural highways, if we can get, you know, two or three feet of usable, smooth pavement to the outside of the lane, that's not being interrupted by those rumble strips, then we're going to call that a win as well while we're still working long term to get that a 1012 foot multi-use path incorporated into their budget for, you know, five, ten, maybe 15 years from now.

00:49:46:08 - 00:49:54:05
John Simmerman
Yeah, Yeah. And here's another treatment option that we have here as well. Yes.

00:49:54:07 - 00:50:24:23
Brent Buice
No, kind of suburban. Yeah. This is Myrtle Beach, and this is outside of a big gated community. But, you know, and you can see a kind of restricted access state highway over to the right. So a lot of these trails are weaving connective tissue. I mean, Myrtle Beach is land use, certainly I wouldn't call it particularly urban in its orientation, extremely car centric, but they have managed to thread a multi-use path through all of that with a lot of creativity.

00:50:25:17 - 00:50:52:11
Brent Buice
And so they have managed to be, like I said, the first city to complete all of their part of the Greenway, mostly through political will and the vision that this would be a popular thing for not only residents, but the millions of tourists who come there with beach cruiser bikes strapped on the back of their car, you know, and they want that experience of riding on the beach and having a safe way to go get a, you know, an ice cream cone while they're on vacation with the family.

00:50:53:16 - 00:51:26:01
John Simmerman
It brings up an idea in my mind, too, that many community ese could, like see an advantage of being able to develop their own off street network of pathways and trails to connect to the East Coast. Greenway, are you all, you know, actively working with and helping, you know, encourage that connectivity so that so so that it's not just the East Coast Greenway going through the community but there is a amplification of the connectivity.

00:51:26:28 - 00:51:53:27
Brent Buice
Yeah, it's not to belabor the analogy, but it really is a spine and ribs kind of a situation, and particularly where we're going through any populated area. We have seen Greenway inspire those cities to develop a more robust bike pad network that is utilizing the East Coast Greenway, which is of course traveling north, south through the cities and areas they want to build off of it.

00:51:53:27 - 00:52:28:28
Brent Buice
So Mount Pleasant, a city adjacent to Charleston, they've got a network that they have dubbed the Mount Pleasant Way, much of which is the East Coast Greenway Spine route. But the rest of it are these as equally important and essential connection to places of business, places of employment, neighborhood schools, all the destinations and trip generators you can think of in Savannah, similar endeavor called TIDE, the town, which is a 30 mile figure eight network of multi-use paths, which are thinking about leveraging the resources you have.

00:52:29:05 - 00:53:00:14
Brent Buice
Savannah realized that it's sitting on this goldmine of publicly owned historic canals that have these beautiful already flat 18 to 20 foot right of way is at the top of these canal embankment that are weaving their way within and between neighborhoods and it's just ready made to put down a concrete multi-use path benches lighting, interpretive signage and it's just sitting there ripe for the picking to be turned into a paved path network.

00:53:00:28 - 00:53:08:04
Brent Buice
And much of it is also the greenway, but a lot of it is also just those essential connections to get people from where they are to where they to want to go.

00:53:08:20 - 00:53:32:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I could imagine, you know, like in the case of, of, of that example of being able to really exemplify, you know, the wayfinding, you know, so I could see like, you know, Savannah being like, okay, the tied to town and we're going to be, you know, branding that and as well as branding it as a in having the wayfinding signs to be able to connect to the the Greenway.

00:53:32:13 - 00:53:34:08
John Simmerman
So I could totally see that happening.

00:53:34:24 - 00:53:56:08
Brent Buice
Yeah, we like to have this consistent signage so that if you're following the Greenway route, you're going to see these signs not everywhere. Some places are more amenable to the signage being installed or they don't want to pay for it. Sometimes we encounter that and so the organization has to raise those funds to get the pilots and the contractors.

00:53:56:08 - 00:54:08:19
Brent Buice
But we have find a lot of the route and certainly all the sections that are on multi-use path, you'll see that Telltale tree and reflection emblem that lets you know, you know, you're on this long distance corridor.

00:54:09:00 - 00:54:16:07
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now I love it and talk a little bit about the funding of of the Greenway how are you all funded.

00:54:17:12 - 00:54:45:05
Brent Buice
We're a membership based nonprofit organization that is also generously supported by a lot of foundations from throughout the entire 15 state corridor and a lot of private donors as well. And we've just launched our first planned giving initiative that has already seen some success of folks who are, you know, in their sunset years and are really big fans of this kind of visionary project.

00:54:45:05 - 00:55:06:14
Brent Buice
And they want to make sure that we're part of their their planned giving objectives. And we're, you know, so grateful. So we're really putting together a diversified portfolio of of public and private support to keep the organization strong and growing. We've been able to add a lot of staff in the last few years, and that's allowed us to be that much more effective.

00:55:06:21 - 00:55:13:18
Brent Buice
It's an avalanche in the best possible sense of the term at this point. Yeah, Yeah.

00:55:13:18 - 00:55:20:17
John Simmerman
As we bring this to a close, are there any final thoughts that you'd really like to leave the audience with?

00:55:21:14 - 00:55:47:03
Brent Buice
Sure. I mean, while the East Coast Greenway Alliance is laser focused on completing the 3000 mile East Coast Greenway, we see an opportunity for the whole country to take advantage of this moment, this infrastructure moment. And there's so much more funding available through the federal infrastructure bill. But a lot of people need assistance to access those funds in a timely way.

00:55:47:11 - 00:56:12:16
Brent Buice
So we've launched a new initiative called Greenways for All that is truly nationwide in scope. So Greenways for all board. We also have a greenways for all Twitter account and this is a great place for resource to come and work about and learn about why greenways are valuable to communities, to individuals, for economic development, personal health and all kinds of points in between.

00:56:12:16 - 00:56:23:06
Brent Buice
And then as importantly, how to access these infrastructure funds so that your community can connect its own greenways, plan, design and construct them moving forward.

00:56:24:16 - 00:56:41:13
John Simmerman
Fantastic. That's great. And I just happened to have that website ready to go. Oh yeah, I love it when a plan works. Brant, it has been such a pleasure reconnecting with you. Thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns Podcast.

00:56:42:04 - 00:56:45:07
Brent Buice
Thanks so much for having me. John It was my pleasure, everyone.

00:56:45:07 - 00:57:02:02
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much for tuning and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Brant Bass. And if you did, please get the thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend and if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you. Subscribe to the channel really means a lot to me and helps the chill out a great deal.

00:57:02:09 - 00:57:28:19
John Simmerman
I'll be back next week with another episode. So until then, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active town store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated.

00:57:28:29 - 00:57:38:02
John Simmerman
Thank you all so much.