GREAT RIVERS GREENWAY ST. LOUIS
A Great Connector Antoine met me on a scorching Saturday morning at the Mysun Charitable Foundation Trailhead along Grant’s Trail, which has been incorporated into the Gravois Greenway ( rtc.li/gravois-grants-trail ). The temperature that day later peaked at 102, just a degree shy of the St. Louis July 16 record. Still, the vast parking lot at the trailhead was about half full, with most of the Saturday morning runners and cyclists aiming south as they set off. There was ample shade in that direction as well as some signature St. Louis scenery around the bend. The trail passes near the estate of the Busch family, now known as Grant’s Farm ( grantsfarm.com ) and home of Budweiser Clydesdales and hundreds of other animals. Two summers ago, just months into the pandemic, Antoine helped cut a virtual ribbon to open the section of the Gravois Greenway: Grant’s Trail that heads northeast from the trailhead. Soon after the ribbon-cutting, flood waters receded enough to allow crews to install the last two bridge sections linking the Gravois with the River des Peres Greenway ( rtc.li/river-des-peres-greenway ), creating a 22-mile continuous path. Having that many miles of protected pathway was a game-changer for Sean Stueve, who lives about five minutes from the Mysun trailhead and has been using it ever since a friend told him about the parking lot. Stueve uses a wheelchair and rides the trails in an arm-powered three-wheeled bike. He said he pedals anywhere from 10 miles total to as far as the trailhead at Holmes and Leffingwell and back. It’s a welcome differ - ence from riding city streets when he lived on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. “I was riding around neighborhoods,” he said. “And being this low, it’s kind of dangerous.” The protected trail lets him focus on his exercise, and on the scenery, rather than drivers. "It’s actually, surprisingly, a lot like this,” Stueve said as he faced an area that featured a canopy of trees in one direction and a burgeoning natural-habitat restoration project planted atop a former driving range in the other. “There are a few little neighborhoods, but it doesn’t feel like you’re in the middle of a city." As Antoine and I walked on the Gravois, a chorus of “On your left” alerts grew as bike after bike passed us. It was music to his ears. Over half a million people use this greenway annually, and Antoine said that the years-long effort to get the Gravois and the River des Peres green - ways to connect will hopefully serve as “an aha moment
THE GREAT RIVERS GREENWAY TRAIL NETWORK IS PROVIDING SAFE OPPORTUNITIES FOR WALKING AND BICYCLING ACROSS THE ST. LOUIS REGION.
for the region to see,” because there are more connec - tions in the works and still more on the wish list. The greenway network offers about 128 miles currently and has roughly 200 more miles in the planning stage. Eventually, the greenway team hopes to provide the St. Louis area with about 600 miles of protected paths across a total of 45 greenways. Together they will form what the team envisions as a “river ring” of trails that hug the Mississippi and Missouri, build north-south and east-west connections through St. Louis and the surrounding counties, and connect more of the St. Louis area directly to the 240-mile state- spanning Katy Trail State Park ( rtc.li/katy-trail-sp ) and eventually the 144-mile Rock Island Trail. The Busch ( rtc.li/busch-greenway ) and Boschert ( rtc.li/ boschert-greenway ) greenways already connect to it. The River Ring, when fully developed, will eventually link St. Louis and St. Charles counties to the greater Madison County Transit trail system ( mcttrails.org ) on the Illinois side of the river, building a system that will be over a quarter of the length of the mighty 2,340-mile-long river it crosses. One of the biggest Great Rivers Greenway projects to date is now underway; it promises to build important connections through several metro St. Louis communities, which proponents say will create vital economic opportunities while also providing trail users with a portal to learn about one St. Louis neighborhood that was swept away. Gateway to a Neighborhood’s Erased History Author and historian Vivian Gibson was standing on the steps of a nearly century-old building that was once the city’s second-oldest Black high school and now anchors the Harris-Stowe State University campus. A young man
PHOTO: Along the Gravois Greenway: Grant's Trail, which connects green space, schools, neighborhoods, historic sites and other destinations across 12+ miles between Kirkwood and St. Louis
$7.7 MILLION Annual flood- damage costs avoided by protecting land along the Meramec Greenway 500,000+ No. of trail users on the Gravois Greenway: Grant’s Trail annually
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RAILS TO TRAILS FALL 2022
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