These paths will also dramatically increase our overall health, decrease stress, make people consider actually living (for once) within a nice bicycle commute of where they work, cut down on road maintenance costs (currently we have a $1 billion backlog that will never be paid, so we need to cut down on auto usage on our deteriorating road network), decrease auto congestion, improve our connections with other people and with nature, and greatly improve our quality of life.

Let’s get Sullivan’s Gulch done, finish NP Greenway, finish the Tonquin Trail, establish more than a ridiculously pitiful one-THIRD of a mile of singletrack for mountain bikers, finish Gateway Green–and do this quickly! The DC area alone has 400 miles of off-street bike paths. We have fallen way behind, and we literally cannot afford to NOT build these trails for all the reasons I have mentioned.