MY 15 YEARS WITH THE VIRGINIA CAPITAL TRAIL (PART 3 OF 3)

MY 15 YEARS WITH THE VIRGINIA CAPITAL TRAIL:
THE future YEARS (2019 & Beyond)

PART THREE OF A THREE PART SERIES

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Memoir Part II ended in the Fall of 2018…

Earlier this year, Cat Anthony invited me to a VCTF Board meeting to talk about the Capital Trail Ambassadors. I spoke about how we did research on similar groups and modeled the VCT group after The Washington & Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) organization. The key learning from this research was: don’t make the group highly structured like club rides where there is a sign in, ride leader, and rigid schedule, instead just ask Ambassadors to “ride when they want and where they want.” I believe this concept has contributed significantly to our Ambassadors’ growth and success.

It was also at this meeting that Cat Anthony paid me the greatest, and very unexpected, compliment: she commented to the Board that I was one of two volunteers (Dean Dunbar being the other) she considered “staff members.”

A few final recollections that don’t fit into the rough timeline used as a framework for this memoir, but stand out from the first spade of dirt turned in 2005 to the world-class asset for our area that the Trail has become: 

• Working with Beth Weisbrod, Executive Director before Cat Anthony. Few will ever understand how her leadership wove through a myriad of difficult situations to bring the Trail to life. 

• Working with and observing VDOT and their strong ownership and responsiveness to Trail needs. These are dedicated folks who deserve our “Thanks” for their role in making the Trail what it is.

• Working with Cat, Claire, and Cyndee, the current VCTF staff. They are a truly effective team, navigating their complex world while focused on making the user experience the best possible. 

And a few other folks who come to mind:

• Dean Dunbar (often supported by Don Grosse and Neal Robinson) who has “owned” the Trail infrastructure. Lead coordinator with VDOT for repairs, maintenance and litter control for many years. Installer and maintainer of benches and bike repair stations along the Trail.

• Angela Bright, a State of Virginia employee, who has spent five years of her “community service” days doing a litter clean up on the Richmond half of the Trail. 

• Our Trail Ambassadors, (now 80 strong) who make the user experience a better one in so many ways.

Looking forward, here are my hopes for the next five years of the Trail and the Foundation. 

• Grow as a small business magnet to provide services to Trail users. There are several new businesses because of the Trail now, but there is room for more.

• Grow further as a “destination” for cyclists and other Trail users across the US and internationally.

• Continue to develop strong connections with the communities the Trail touches through outreach and engaging the community leaders and citizens.

And finally, although it will take longer than five years, I envision the VCT being interconnected with other trails to create a Virginia wide system of trails completely separate from road vehicles use. 

Thank you,

Ted Hanson
Virginia Capital Trail Ambassador
East-End Coordinator

MY 15 YEARS WITH THE VIRGINIA CAPITAL TRAIL (Part 2 of 3)

MY 15 YEARS WITH THE VIRGINIA CAPITAL TRAIL:
THE recent YEARS 2012-2019

PART TWO OF A THREE PART SERIES

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

Memoir Part I ended the “go ahead” to start the Trail Ambassadors group in the Fall of 2012. 

However, before I continue the Trail Ambassador story, I need to backtrack to 2011 and 2012 and pick up two items.

After the trail surveys of 2010 and 2011, it was clear there was a need to get user count statistics as a measure of success for the VCTF Board and to use in outreach and grant applications. In 2011, the VCTF purchased three electronic counters for placement along the Trail. These were electric eyes to be placed about 18 inches off the ground that would count every time something (think bicycle) or being (think human or dog or deer) crossed the path. (Note: these counters were later replaced by a VDOT system.) 

Michael Luchs, a professor at William & Mary and I did a survey of the 6.5 miles of completed Trail in James City County. Upon survey results, one location decided upon was the Battle of Green Spring parking lot. We did have an “oops” moment as the sign post in which we installed the counter belonged to the local chapter of a national historic organization! I checked with them to get “after-the-fact” permission. They requested a formal letter signed by the Executive Director. Upon receipt, the President sent me an email: “unacceptable” as I had spelled the “Battle of Green Spring” as one word “Greensprings” and it must be Green Spring.  But, low and behold, the returned approval letter we received had misspelled the Trail name, using the word “Capitol” (the building) versus the correct “Capital” (the seat of government). I consulted with Beth Weisbrod and asked her, “Should I?” (tell him to correct the spelling), but we both laughed and just declared it a success.

My first recollection of a CAP2CAP event was from May 2011. However, it had already been an event since 2006. This year I got involved in doing signage for the routes in Charles City for the start out of Chickahominy Riverfront Park in James City County. I did signage duty for about 5-6 years until it was assigned to a contractor. This involved placement and uninstallation of about 50 route signs along the 25 and 50 mile routes. After a lot of help from Neal Robinson and others, it involved probably 8 hours of road duty each year. 

Now back to the Ambassadors...the approach was to recruit volunteers who would be trained to improve the Trail user experience by providing mechanical, medical and information assistance to those using the Trail. Of course, in 2012, this was largely a James City County activity, but as Co-Founder Chan Mohney lives in the Richmond area, he brought in two Richmond based folks to round out the ones from Williamsburg for a total of seven Ambassadors in the initial training classes.

Ambassador training, after a brief history of the Trail, was basically borrowed from the W&OD (Washington & Old Dominion Trail) “best practices” which Chan was granted permission to use. Things to do and not do…avoid confrontation, make suggestions about safety, assist those in need (mechanical and medical), and provide information (location of water, restrooms and other amenities).

Ambassadors received one hour of classroom training, followed by three hours of “on the trail” experience with Chan pointing out things to observe and report. At the end of the training, Ambassadors were provided with a logoed vest, first aid kit, business cards with Trail Rules and a QR code link to the Trail maps on the website. They are expected to wear a helmet as a good example, do two patrols a month April through October, and file a report within 48 hours. Until 2018, the reporting was done the old-fashioned way, writing an email to me with mileage, hours, sections covered and observations and hopefully photos. Yours truly then manually posted this data to an EXCEL and reported the results quarterly. (In 2018 VCTF staff automated these processes, Yeah!)

In three years, the Ambassador ranks grew from those 7 “Founding Members” in November 2012 to 30 plus members by the end of 2015.  That year the Ambassadors did 213 patrols for 560 hours and over 5000 miles!

Larry Skalak was a legendary Williamsburg area cyclist (his day job was as a home-building contractor). He passed away in 2014 while starting his fourth cross country bicycling trek. The Williamsburg Area Bicyclist (WAB) bike club decided to do something to remember Larry and his love of cycling. I have no recollection of how I got into this project, but I was soon leading the project with Dean Dunbar. After several meeting with Larry’s widow, June, we had a concept, a bench alongside the VCT. After nearly a year of planning and construction, the result was a world class pavilion with a bike rack, bench and Fixit station, alongside the VCT at Chickahominy Riverfront Park in James City County.

In 2017, I decided it was time after five years, to transition the leadership of the Trail Ambassadors to someone with a new vision and leadership direction. Before I could make this desire known, Beth Weisbrod announced that after 10 years leading the Trail from concept to completion, she would be “retiring”. When Cat Anthony came on board, she reached out to stakeholders in the VCT and asked to meet with me. In that meeting, I committed to delay my “retirement” for one year. Cat, true to her word, remembered our agreement and in the Fall of 2018, I transitioned into the role of East-End Ambassador Coordinator. But in a gratifying development since then, I regularly work with VCTF’s 2018 hire, Claire, to consult on Trail issues and concerns as well as outreach and marketing (to be continued…)!

Ted Hanson
Virginia Capital Trail Ambassador
East-End Coordinator

My 15 Years with the Virginia Capital Trail

My 15 years with the Virginia capital Trail: The Early Years 2005-2012

Part One of a two part series

October 15, 2019

My nearly 15-year long association with the Virginia Capital Trail (VCT) began in July 2005 at the groundbreaking for the Greensprings section (the first section). Then Governor Mark Warner gave the keynote address and arrived on site with security in six large black SUVs. I rode my bike the 7 miles from home. The juxtaposition of my bike and all the eight mile per gallon SUVs sticks with me years later.

I had been an avid recreational cyclist since 1989 living in three other states, Virginia being the fourth. However, I was a little “spooked” by the Virginia roads and motorists. I moved here from Connecticut, which had already started building a paved multi-use trail, the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, so I knew the benefits of riding with no vehicle concerns.

A year later in 2006, I was there as new Governor Tim Kaine did the ribbon cutting honors for the opening of the Greensprings section. The Trail was open to ride, or at least a small section of it was.

In the next couple years, sections in downtown Richmond and Charles City were completed.

At the time we Trail watchers thought it was a peculiar way to build a trail with a short section at both ends and then a stand-alone section in the middle, unconnected to either end. We would soon learn that this was intentional as the Virginia Secretary of Transportation, Whitt Clement, believed that it would be hard to not finish the Trail with 3 unconnected sections. His reasoning that if 20 miles were contiguous, that during a budget crunch the legislature might feel that was enough and truncate the completion of the 52 miles.

My next key recollection of Trail association is from October 2009, at the “Jamestown Volunteer Initiative”. This was a meeting led by Beth Weisbrod, Executive Director of VCTF at the time, and Leah Dempsey, VCTF Board member (Leah is still on the Board in 2019). The objective was “Identification of Potential Volunteer Opportunities”.  Six Williamsburg residents attended the meeting at the downtown Williamsburg Library (five of whom are still active and affiliated with the VCT in various ways).

Out of this meeting four volunteered to lead projects:

1. Develop a “Friends of the Capital Trail”

2. Find a site director for CAP2CAP (which was based at Chickahominy Riverfront Park)

3. Conduct a Trail User Study

4. Develop a database of volunteers

The results: The Friends and database of volunteers evolved over time as the VCT Trail Ambassadors and its related roster; a CAP2CAP site director was engaged; and a user study was conducted in both 2010 and again in 2011, providing valuable insight into who used the trail.

Key findings from the User Survey were that 75% of users were Williamsburg residents, 20% were from other parts of Virginia with 5% from out of the state. Also 70% of the users were cyclists versus 30% runners/walkers. Yes, things have changed in the years since, with the majority of users now from Richmond and out of the area.

During 2010 and 2011 a couple of us researched “Friends of the Trail” groups, and then visited two trails (C&O Trail and the W&OD Trail, both in the DC area) to get first-hand feedback on “Friends” groups. The visits include discussing the administrative aspects and “shadowing” some team members on one of their patrols. The learning was almost identical from these two visits and the Trail Patrol (now Trail Ambassadors) organization was modeled after the best practices gleaned from these two other trails.

Then in mid-2012, I got an unexpected email from Chan Mohney, who was retiring to Richmond and had been a trail patrol member on the W&OD for many years. We agreed to meet for lunch in Williamsburg. Out of that meeting, the Ambassadors blueprint was proposed to Beth Weisbrod. She took the concept to the VCTF Board and after approval we started on our Trail Ambassador journey (to be continued…)!

Ted Hanson
Virginia Capital Trail Ambassador
East-End Coordinator