Robert Searns | An Island Press author | Photo credit: Dru Carroll

Robert Searns

Robert Searns has a four-decade history of visualizing, planning, and getting trails and greenway projects built. He was Project Director of Denver’s Platte River and Mary Carter Greenways—both national-award-wining projects. He helped plan the Grand Canyon National Park Greenway, played a key role on the Memphis Wolf River Greenway, and authored the Commerce City, CO Walk, Bike, Fit Master Plan.  He co-authored Greenways: A Guide to Planning Design and Development (Island Press)—published in the U.S. and China—and contributed to Greenways: The Beginning of an International Movement (Elsevier Press). He has written for Planning, Landscape Architecture, LA China, and American Trails Magazines and has served as Editor-in-Chief of Trails and Beyond Magazine. He's been a keynote speaker in the U.S. and Asia and a trainer for the U.S. National Park Service and the Urban Land Institute. He chaired American Trails and was a founder of The World Trails Network as well as being a delegate to the America’s Great Outdoors White House conclave. He resides, writes, hikes and bikes near Denver, Colorado.

Beyond Greenways: The Next Step for Urban Trails and Walking Routes by Robert M. Searns | An Island Press book

Beyond Greenways

The Next Step for City Trails and Walking Routes

If your doorstep were a trailhead, how would you experience your city? With this newfound freedom, you might head in a new direction—walk to a restaurant in an area you’ve never explored, begin to savor your daily walk to work, or set out with a daypack to the city edges for fresh air and nature. Despite the known health benefits of routine walking, many people don’t have pleasant, safe places to walk. Too often, street networks have barriers—cul-de-sacs, freeways, or busy, dangerous-to-cross, arterials. Many lack sidewalks at all.