Best Cities and States for Running Trails/Path Systems?
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Most of these cities are more on the liberal/progressive side of the equation, and tend to be flat in the city proper. With a few exceptions, they all tend to be "newer" cities as well.
As a long time Twin Cities resident, they have the nation's best part system, which is the backbone of the trail system. They have a goal of 95%+ of residents within 1/4 of a park in the entire metro. In most cases, most people have 5 parks within a half mile.
There's also just a more healthful culture in general. Lastly, in the suburbs, many cities put in 8-12' wide blacktop paths instead of 4' wide sidewalks, on both sides of the road. These paths serve as along the road connectors to the next park/trail. In winter, many residents ride on the fat tire bikes that are equipped for the snow, which were invented in MN.
Albuquerque has a extensive trail system that offers all sorts of hiking and running opportunities. The city is a mile high and many of the trails go up into the foothills so elevation might be a "thing" for some runners. https://www.hikingproject.com/direct...14/albuquerque
Expand the map and you have the Santa Fe trails -- even higher.
Providence and Rhodie Island have an impressive amount of long paved trails that are pretty scenic too. East Bay and Blackstone River were my two favorite paved trails.
Time Out list its top 15
Title:
The 15 most stunning running trails in America
- Drool with envy at the kinds of views some lucky runners enjoy every morning on the best running trails in America
#1 Kalalau Trail, Kauai, Hawaii
#2 Lakefront Trail, Chicago, Illinois
#3 Wildwood Trail, Portland, Oregon
#4 Broken Hill Trail, San Diego, California
#5 Mesa Trail, Boulder, Colorado
#6 Venetian Causeway, Miami, Florida
#7 Hidden Valley Trail, Moab, Utah
#8 McKenzie River Trail, Eugene, Oregon
#9 The Presidio, San Francisco, California
#10 Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail at Lady Bird Lake, Austin, Texas
#11 Mt. Hollywood Loop, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California
#12 Charles River Esplanade, Boston, Massachusetts
#13 Shut-In Trail, Asheville, North Carolina
#14 Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C.
#15 Central Park Reservoir and Outer Loop, New York, New York
#1. Boulder, Colorado
#2. Eugene, Oregon
#3. San Francisco, California
#4. New York, New York
#5. Portland, Oregon
#6. Austin, Texas
#7. Chicago, Illinois
#8. Boston, Massachusetts
#9. San Diego, California
#10. Washington, DC
Oregon regularly gets mentioned, but I'm not sure how Washington stays somewhat off the radar nationally. Where I live in Bellingham is packed with runners and trails, as it's the only place where the Cascades meet the sea. We have direct access to several large mountain trail systems (Chuckanut Mountain, Blanchard and Galbraith Mountain, which is also constantly the top mountain bike system in WA): https://www.trailrunproject.com/dire...747/bellingham, but we have an extensive in-town trail network, as well. There are nearly nonstop ultras and marathons, and since we're near sea level, most trails are snow-free year round.
Wisconsin (overall for their many statewide trails like the Military Ridge State Trail & Ice Age National Scenic Trail)
Madison, WI
Eau Claire, WI
Austin, TX
All of Minneapolis and St Paul and suburbs (Woodbury, Eden Prairie, etc)
Ann Arbor, MI
Fort Wayne, IN
Columbia, MO
Denver, CO
Lynchburg, VA
Again these are just from our experiences from what we've seen and heard and what we felt was a lot of running trails for the relative size of the city. I would love to hear from other parts of the country or those that have traveled alot and feel there are cities we should check out or may not have thought about that have really good trail systems.
Thanks!
Wow, nice to see my little city making the list! Did you visit here or just read about it somewhere? I am fortunate to live downtown basically a stones throw from our excellent trail network. I have lived car-free since moving here seven years ago for a job and use the trails often for getting to places like the grocery store, restaurants, community events, parks, and friends houses. It is indeed a pretty good network for such a small city and not very well known nationally.
The Planning District Commission currently have bike/ped counters on the trails and the Blackwater Creek Trail (the most popular route) has averaged 790 users a day of which 591 are pedestrian and 199 are bicyclists since they were installed a month ago. The highest single day count was over 1,100. For those who do not know, here is a map of the downtown Lynchburg area trail network: http://www.lynchburgparksandrec.com/...-Trail-Map.pdf
Of the cities I have been to in the US, I would say these had the best networks:
Cleveland
Boulder
Atlanta believe it or not (the BeltLine/Eastside trail is excellent)
Arlington/Washington DC
San Francisco
Raleigh
Denver
Philadelphia
Greenville, SC
Chattanooga
I have also heard amazing things about Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Bend, Boise, Madison, Chicago, and Eugene though I have not been to these places yet.
We're full of hills that mean you can either suck it up or ride the long way around. Major bike routes tend to go around hills rather than through them. Sometimes that means going along a major road that's also around that hill.
Water is often in the way, and bridges are limited. Again the connection points are often major roads, and only some have bike lanes or parallel trails. Progress is slow...only recently did the second bridge over the 18-mile-lone Lake Washington get a bike lane, and it'll be several years before it's really connected well to the rest of the city.
We dono't have a major old rail network to convert. Some waterfronts are private (look up Broadmoor, which blocks off a major route).
All that said, the culture is good. And you can ride from Downtown into actual wilderness if you don't mind some distance. A lot of good routes are alongside water.
For biking, hands down Phoenix. I have been hitting the trails for almost 10 years and still haven't rode all the trails in the metro area. South Mountain Park is the largest municipal park in the country and has some amazing mountain biking trails. However some of the trails would be poor for running as they tend to have a lot of elevation gain and aren't always paved.
Phoenix does have the Canal Trail System which winds almost 70 miles in total through the metro, usually paved and mostly flat as it follows along the banks of the canals that snake through the metro area. They are very popular and even lit in portions for night running.
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