This recent editorial in the Sacramento Bee highlights a valuable project that could eventually become part of the envisioned Golden Necklace of trails and parkways that would connect the gold rush discovery site in Coloma to downtown Sacramento, which we wrote about in our 2007 research report, The American River Parkway: Governance, Ecoregionalism, and Heritage, A Vision & Policy Primer. (pp. 17-29)
An excerpt from the Bee editorial.
“Imagine a 70-mile continuous trail loop for hiking, biking and horseback riding that connects the Sacramento region's creek and river corridors.
“That longtime vision, going back to the mid-1960s, slowly is taking shape. Mile by mile, as funding has fallen into place, the pieces are being assembled, even during troubled economic times.
“Most people are familiar with the American River Parkway, the anchor of the planned loop. It stretches 32 miles from Discovery Park in Sacramento to Beal's Point at Folsom Lake.
“But here's another important link in the loop: the Dry Creek corridor in northern Sacramento and South Placer counties, in one of the fastest urbanizing areas in California. With the last approval expected to come from the Central Valley Flood Protection Board on Aug. 26, the first three-mile phase of the Deer Creek Parkway trail in northern Sacramento County finally can get under way by Sept. 1.
“As Len Marino, chief engineer for the flood protection board, has said, "Everything is in place; no show stoppers here."
“Building new trail sections may seem the opposite of what common sense would dictate during a time of serious budget troubles.
“But just as the infrastructure for the national park system and the California state park system was built largely during the Great Depression, parks projects should continue during the current Great Recession. They provide jobs and lay the groundwork for a future quality of life.”
