The Capital Trail is Ever-Evolving: What's Next on the Horizon?

Dear Friend of the Capital Trail,

I am looking forward to an exciting 2020 at the Virginia Capital Trail Foundation.  I wanted to give you a brief update on some of the projects that are happening on or near the Capital Trail.  As you can tell, the Capital Trail is ever-evolving and timelines can change due to many factors.  Check out just a few of the projects below: 

Henrico County:

Bathrooms at Four Mile Creek:  Yes, this is in the works with Henrico County Parks and Recreation but there is not a set date for construction.  Henrico County has expressed that they are getting closer but construction drawings and budget are still being reviewed by Henrico and VDOT.  

Varina Safety Enhancements: VDOT's completion date is scheduled for September 2020.  Here are more details on some of the enhancements.

Turkey Island Creek Public Access Project:  The James River Association is planning a public park along the Virginia Capital Trail in Henrico County. When complete, the 12.2-acre riverside park will provide access to Turkey Island Creek, a tributary of the James River, and serve as a trailhead for the Virginia Capital Trail.  Here is more information.

James City County/Williamsburg:

Connector to Colonial Williamsburg/BoAT Trail:  VCTF and the Tidewater Trails Alliance are working together to connect the Capital Trail to Williamsburg.  We are currently solidifying the route and collaborating with JCC, the City of Williamsburg, and the College of William & Mary to make this happen.  Here is more information on the long-term vision of the BoAT Trail.

Charles City County:

Connector to the High School:  The construction of little less than a half-mile shared-use path along Route 155 trail to the Charles City County High School. Construction is expected to start in a few months.  Here is more information.   

Lawrence Lewis, Jr. Park Primitive Camping Area:  Physical improvements to the area are complete.  The camping area consists of three campsites with picnic tables. We are continuing to work with our partners at the James River Association and Charles City County to set up online registration for the primitive camping area. Here is more information.  

City of Richmond:

Gillies Creek Gateway:  A proposed paved, shared-use path that would ultimately extend approximately 2.5 miles from the Virginia Capital Trail along Dock Street, northward through the Greater Fulton Community, and connect to the planned mixed-income redevelopment of the former Armstrong High School in the Oakwood Community.  More information can be found in the City of Richmond Capital Improvement Budget on page 77.  

The Low Line Green:  Construction has begun on beautifying the portion of the trail in the City of Richmond near the Flood Wall by our friends at Capital Trees.  Here is what it will look like.

Canal Walk Connector To Brown's Island:  This project will improve the connection between Brown's Island, T-Potterfield Bridge, and the proposed Ashland to Petersburg Trail (40+ mile trail).  
More information can be found in the City of Richmond Capital Improvement Budget on page 72.  

These are very exciting times for the Virginia Capital Trail! The future is bright and full of great possibilities.

Thank You,

Cat Anthony
Executive Director

Photo Credit: M. Drumheller

Stay Active this Winter!

embrace the cold - tips on staying active all winter long

January 8, 2020

During the winter months, it’s only natural to feel a bit sluggish and tired. Newly set fitness goals may seem harder than ever to achieve as temperatures drop but don’t give up. Check out these fitness tips on how you can embrace the cold and stay active this winter.

1. Layer Up - Dress for the weather. Consider wearing gloves to protect your hands. Invest in a water and wind resistant jacket to keep out the chills. Be sure to wear a base layer and remember: above all - keep dry.

2. Be Visible - Stand out and be seen. Wear reflective gear, brightly colored clothing, and use lights. A headlight or rear flasher will significantly increase your visibility.

3. Prepare - Plan your route in advance and share your plans with a friend. Consider taking a more wooded route to help cut down on the wind. Pay attention to weather conditions and wind chills. If conditions are dangerous, be flexible and move your workout to a different time or day.

4. Warm-Up - Add additional time to your warm-up session. If you don’t normally warm-up, consider adding a 10-15 minute warm-up routine during the winter months. Cold muscles don’t perform as well and are more prone to injury. It only takes a few minutes and your muscles will thank you later.

5. Stay Motivated - Keep focused on your goals. Enter an event to help you stay motivated. The Winter Warrior Challenge is a great event to keep you moving all winter long. Challenge your friends for some friendly competition!

6. Grab a Partner - Friends are great accountability partners and will help keep you motivated. If you can’t find someone to ride or run with, you can look into joining a cycling or running group like WAB, RABA, Richmond Road Runners, Colonial Road Runners, etc.

7. Stay Hydrated - When it’s cold, you might not feel thirsty but it is more important than ever to stay hydrated. Fill your water bottle with warm water so it doesn’t freeze. Not only does hydration help regulate your body temperature but it can also give you a much-needed boost!

8. Be Kind - Reward yourself for getting it done! Don’t be concerned with pace or mileage. Being active in the wintertime is more about conditioning and maintaining instead of crushing your times. Be proud of yourself for what you have accomplished. There are people who didn’t even get off the couch today!

Colder months can be frustrating but try to think of them as new adventures. The important thing is to stay active, be safe, and get outside! Think of all those calories you’ll burn!

Resources:

8 Tips for Better Winter Cycling by Tyrone Holmes

16 Winter Cycling Tips to Keep You Motivated and Battle the Winter Blahs by David Arthur

10 Tips to Make Winter Running Less Miserable by Yishane Lee

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