The award recognizes a project that demonstrates outstanding planning, design, and implementation, that enhances the trails movement in the specified location. Submissions describing the trail, greenway (or trail or greenway system), or blueway including successful aspects such as planning, design, challenges solved, public participation, sustainability, economic benefits, promotion, and benefits to the local community are encouraged. Level One: Projects funded with less than $500,000.
One of Fantasy Island's mountain biking trails
In 2006 there were two well-deserving candidates that have exemplified outstanding success in attracting visitors to trails by combining location with creative design.
Fantasy Island, encompassing 12 miles of singletrack trails on 348-acres of formerly-neglected desert land on the southeast side of Tucson, is one of the state's most popular riding areas. FI attracts riders from around the state, the region, the country, and even the world. A survey taken one day in the spring of 2005 found riders there from Vancouver, B.C., New Hampshire, and the UK in addition to locals and day-trippers.
In 2005, The future of Fantasy Island was threatened by city development plans. Local trails advocates met to begin the development of a strategy to protect the Fantasy Island property, persevering against opposition from the State Land Department.
They created "FICA," the Fantasy Island Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit composed of advocates from all walks of the trails community and open space conservation. FICA was supported and advised by Pima Trails Association and the Urban Trails Coalition, two local trails advocacy groups with a long, distinguished track record of success.
The Fantasy Island Trails Park Master Plan ultimately won over the State Land Department, demonstrating how creative master planning and landscape design, supported by community advocacy, can generate a success, even when a situation is considered "hopeless" by the experts!
They created "FICA," the Fantasy Island Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit composed of advocates from all walks of the trails community and open space conservation. FICA was supported and advised by Pima Trails Association and the Urban Trails Coalition, two local trails advocacy groups with a long, distinguished track record of success.
The Fantasy Island Trails Park Master Plan ultimately won over the State Land Department, demonstrating how creative master planning and landscape design, supported by community advocacy, can generate a success, even when a situation is considered "hopeless" by the experts!
Prairie Pathways represents an effort to provide a systematic approach to trail enhancement, addressing primarily interpretation, but also wayfinding, orientation, and other site enhancements. Tracing through the communities of Iowa's Cedar Valley is an 80-mile network of recreational trails that meander through historic landscapes and pass by historic resources, providing opportunities to interpret the region's cultural heritage.
The Prairie Pathways concept is to enhance the trail network with interpretive exhibits and artwork at numerous locations through Cedar Falls, Evansdale, Hudson, and Waterloo.
In 2002, over 30 organizations were invited to support the project. Representatives of local governments, museums, arts groups, recreation and environmental groups, economic development organizations, trail enthusiasts and private entities were asked to suggest goals for interpretation along the trail network.
To meet these goals, fourteen themes and related subjects for interpretation have been identified, including the natural history of the region, the entrepreneurs who built the industries, and the experience of urban life amid thousands of square miles of farmland.
The result will be a coordinated interpretive experience. Trail users will have the opportunity to gain a thorough understanding of how this region developed, the people who built it, and what forces and influences affected this development.
2015: Tahoe-Pyramid Bikeway
2013: Salida to Leadville, Colorado Trail Corridor Feasibility Study
2010: Tennessee Riverpark
2008: Judge "Buddy" Villines
2004: Hall Bargainer Inc.
