A Trail to Make New York Whole

In late 2020, the State of New York provided a way for anyone to hike or bike its vast expanse almost entirely—almost. Despite two routes totaling 750 miles, the Empire State Trail, the nation’s longest multiuse state trail, stopped short of Long Island. Between Manhattan and Long Island’s tip near Montauk, not far from some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, there was still no trail. It’s this glaring omission that TPL’s Long Island Greenway proposes to remedy.

A new trail stretching 200 miles, the Long Island Greenway will provide 27 communities with greater access to green space and connect to 26 existing parks, all while offering New Yorkers an escape into nature. And it will link residents of Long Island, including those in Brooklyn and Queens, to the Empire State Trail. Urban trails like the Long Island Greenway are also important for mitigating growing climate risks.

Of course, building the Empire State Trail was no easy feat. It took almost four years, 58 construction projects, and $297 million to become a reality. But trail advocates still quickly took note of—and issue with—Long Island’s omission. “That’s 8 million people you’re not serving,” says Danny Gold, TPL’s project manager for the Long Island Greenway. He adds that the greenway will connect to communities that don’t currently have easy access to trails.

Someone close to the early planning process for the Empire State Trail surmised that Long Island’s dense development would be prohibitively difficult to navigate. According to Gold, TPL challenged that opinion. Difficult maybe, but not impossible. In 2018, as the Empire State Trail was under construction, TPL conducted a study. It concluded that a multiuse trail extension on Long Island was, indeed, feasible. And the island’s density could be seen as making an even stronger case for the trail: more people to reach with its benefits.

Planning the Impossible

TPL Senior Program Manager Mike Lieberman

That study positioned Trust for Public Land to spearhead the Long Island Greenway—an ideal match, as creating trails under challenging circumstances is one of the things TPL does best. And there is plenty of incentive: Extensive multiuse trails bring numerous benefits, such as improving public health, generating new economic activity, and reducing environmental hazards such as air and water pollution and—the big one—greenhouse gas emissions. And they make excellent community amenities, enabling active transportation. People can commute, run errands, visit friends, go out to dinner, and engage in other routine activities without having to use a car.

While it’s a great advantage to Long Island residents that the greenway will connect to so many communities and parks, the complexities and nuances of mapping such a route can’t be overstated. For TPL project planners, route-finding is among the most critical—and technically challenging—steps.

“If you’re thinking about laying out a trail in an urban landscape like Long Island, existing linear features are one of the best ways to connect people,” says J.T. Horn, director of Trust for Public Land’s national Trails initiative. “When there’s a rail line or a utility corridor, it can be used for a dual purpose,” he explains. In fact, the existing 10-mile North Shore Rail Trail, which runs between Port Jefferson and Wading River on Long Island, follows a former train route turned electric path. Trust for Public Land is working with the Long Island Power Authority to share similar right-of-way access for stretches of the Long Island Greenway.

The Long Island Greenway effort, which is projected to cost $114 million and is actively fundraising, needs to win support among public officials and agencies in Brooklyn, Queens, the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, and in multiple Long Island towns and villages. There is also the broader public to enroll in favor of the idea: the landowners, residents, and businesspeople who will find themselves near the greenway route. And of course, there is an urgent need to raise millions of dollars for the project from various federal and state programs, grantmaking organizations, and individual donations small or large.

Mike Lieberman, who strategizes planning and development for the Long Island Greenway as senior program manager for community trails in TPL’s New York State office, has carved the greenway’s planning into five sections. As TPL implements them, there could be a dozen concurrent construction projects in multiple locations and on various schedules, all working toward completion.

“The Long Island Greenway sounds almost impossible—and is also the perfect fit for TPL.”

– Mike Lieberman, TPL senior program manager

The built terrain of Long Island is quite complex. It’s densely populated and developed, with few pedestrian or cycling routes as alternatives to some of the state’s most hazardous roads—the roaring expressways, parkways, and highways built chiefly as rapid conduits in and out of New York City. As Lieberman puts it, the Long Island Greenway project “sounds almost impossible—and is also the perfect fit for TPL.”

A Matter of Necessity

Trail advocate Marty Buchman

Elsewhere in recent years, TPL has led the development of similarly ambitious trails that seemed improbable, such as the Five Mile Creek Greenbelt, a 17-mile trail in Dallas to connect more than a dozen parks in one of the city’s most destitute districts when it comes to green space; the Atlanta BeltLine, a 22-mile trail that encircles the city on former rail lines; and the 3-mile Bloomingdale Trail and linear park at The 606 in Chicago, which also repurposed a former railway.

The 606 has brought public health benefits to surrounding communities; the BeltLine has improved Atlanta’s climate resilience and economic stability; and the Five Mile Creek Greenbelt is on track to revitalize local neighborhoods and improve urban ecosystems. Numerous other TPL greenways have added substantial new outdoor space and connectivity in parts of cities where they had been lacking.

In 2019, Trust for Public Land conducted a detailed survey of the first section of the Long Island Greenway, a 25-mile stretch from Eisenhower Park to Brentwood State Park. The site analysis included lidar imaging (a remote sensing technique that uses pulsed radar light) from aircraft to produce detailed images of the ground features; such granular information helps planners consider the finer points of topography and overall feasibility of the route.

Trust for Public Land also led a public engagement process that helped elicit insights about the trail’s development from nearby residents, businesspeople, and public officials—all of whom stand to benefit from its realization. In doing so, TPL gained support for the greenway by bringing people together and guiding them toward a common goal.

“Long Island is the absolute worst place to ride.”

– Marty Buchman, trail advocate

Marty Buchman, a cyclist and trail advocate who lives in Port Jefferson, on the island’s North Shore, says the sheer density of development and people on Long Island poses the greatest difficulty in bringing the greenway to life. “But that’s also the real necessity of it,” he adds. “Suffolk County, especially, wasn’t designed for the amount of traffic it holds. It was originally a rural county, and you have roads that were originally rural county roads now being absolutely choked at rush hour.”

Having ridden bikes in 27 countries and in almost every state, Buchman laments that “Long Island is the absolute worst place to ride.” He and his wife have ridden from London to Krakow, through Israel, Spain, Italy, and Thailand. He’s been hit by vehicles twice on his bike—both times on Long Island. One instance happened to occur on a Bike to Work Day (though he regularly biked 26 miles to his job as a history teacher in Plainview before retiring to teach yoga) in a spot where he had the right of way. It was a busy road, he says, but “at that section of Long Island, there was no alternative.”

Crucially, 60 percent of the planned Long Island Greenway trail would be off-street, meaning users wouldn’t have to travel alongside cars. The first portion is planned to follow a major corridor for utility lines, and in satellite images, a good deal of the prospective route already resembles a trail in the rough.

It’s a practical approach to adding trails in dense areas—and a strategy TPL employs in projects across the country. This typically positions trails away from roads, as well, meaning cooler, shaded places to ride or walk—and, for people like Buchman, the peace of mind that comes with safety.

Making Believers

CLIMB President Michael Vitti

Michael Vitti of Glen Head, a North Shore community not far outside New York City, is a serious mountain biker and president of a group called Concerned Long Island Mountain Bicyclists, or CLIMB. He describes the group as “the premier advocate” for bike paths in the area.

He estimates the group, which he and some friends started in 1990, has built and continues to maintain more than 200 miles of mountain bike trails on Long Island, and long-distance paths like the greenway would make those trails easier to reach without a car. “We don’t like putting our bikes in cars to drive an hour to go ride a bike,” Vitti says.

In the late 2000s, CLIMB joined 10 other stakeholder groups in assembling a vision plan. The idea was to build a multiuse trail across Nassau and Suffolk Counties, largely along the former path of the Long Island Motor Parkway, much of which the first section of the Long Island Greenway aims to follow. Opened in 1908 (and closed in late ’30s), the route is also known as the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway and hosted one of the earliest auto-racing events, the Vanderbilt Cup.

On Long Island, as with many of its previous trail projects, Trust for Public Land is leading an effort to realize a vision that had percolated among residents and grassroots advocates for years, but who ran into repeated roadblocks toward their goals.

As TPL began formulating its strategy to create the Long Island Greenway in 2018, Danny Gold called, among others, Vitti, because he was widely known as a biking and trail advocate. “He wanted to pick my brain about a Long Island Greenway,” Vitti recalls. “To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in calling him back. Because I’m like, ‘This is crazy! This guy is nuts. He’ll never be able to do it. He doesn’t know how much patience you have to have, and all this other stuff.’”

Eventually, Vitti managed to connect with Gold. “He explained he was from the Trust for Public Land,” Vitti says. “So, I did some research, and [thought], ‘Wow, this is a national organization. They’re amazing. And they want to do this on Long Island? Yeah, I’ll help them. But I hope they don’t give up.’” When TPL hired an engineering firm to aid in planning, he knew things were getting serious.

“We don’t like putting our bikes in cars to drive an hour to go ride a bike.”

– Michael Vitti, president of Concerned Long Island Mountain Bicyclist

Vitti invited other trail advocates to a meeting TPL convened. The guest list included Denis Byrne, who has studied the history of the Long Island Motor Parkway extensively. “We provided input on which ways to go, because we’d already Been planning this, our dream greenway,” Vitti explains. Byrne has long hoped a formal trail could help preserve historic remnants of the parkway. Otherwise, “the route is going to get erased by time,” he says.

Having overcome their initial reservations, Vitti and his fellow bikers at CLIMB are now eager partners, helping TPL gain wider community input and support. And you can bet your knobby tires they’ll be ready to hit the trail as soon as the first section opens.

Trails Connect Communities—and Families Too

Trail advocate Kim Covell

Kim Covell of Water Mill, New York, near Southampton, describes herself not as a dedicated activist but says, “I just give my two cents here and there where the trails are concerned.” When it comes to trails, Covell, who works at an area news organization, qualifies easily as a superfan. “I ride mountain bikes. I ride road bikes. I ride fitness bikes, and I also walk,” she says.

Getting out on trails to ride bikes is also something she and her husband and son enjoy doing together. “You know, every weekend, and when we’re off [work], we’re usually out doing a trail,” she says. Covell also follows several social media feeds that focus on trails, observing, “You get all sorts of tips on trails and hidden places.” She and her brother, who also lives on Long Island, go out together on mountain bike trails such as the 9-mile Calverton Mountain Bike Trail loop near the North Shore town of Wading River.

Covell has ridden the length of Long Island twice as part of a fundraising event but says twice was enough: “I paid my dues. I don’t need to do it again.” That said, her attitude would change with a new route. And she is aware of the Long Island Greenway project. “When they start getting [the trail] out here, I’m going to get super excited.”

As it happens, the Long Island Greenway’s easternmost segment, near where Covell and her family live, is second in line on Lieberman’s planning structure. It will run from Riverhead, near where Long Island forks north and south, to Montauk at the island’s eastern tip. For this approximately 50-mile segment, Suffolk County was awarded a $3.8 million RAISE grant in 2023 from the Department of Transportation (the acronym stands for Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity).

“When they start getting [the trail] out here, I’m going to get super excited.”

– Kim Covell, trail advocate

Trust for Public Land experts helped write the winning RAISE application, an effort that exemplifies the organization’s experience and ability to get the job done. “Because we are a national organization with an office in DC and staffers who have deep knowledge and backgrounds in this work, we can provide insight and influence to help secure federal funding for these local communities,” says TPL’s J.T. Horn. “Federal grants are one of the most important ways that TPL can add value.”

The end goal is to get trail users away from roads and speeding vehicles—Long Island accounts for about one-third of the state’s bicycle fatalities. Improved climate resilience and the health benefits that come with time spent outdoors are noteworthy outcomes, as well.
Lieberman wants people to depend on the greenway and feel good about it—for it to serve as an active transportation corridor that connects communities. “It begins with people walking for exercise,” he says. “The next step, if the infrastructure is there, is that it becomes part of their commute, part of their lifestyle. It becomes a part of the way they see the world.” Or even just the state—the entire state.

Bradford McKee has written about architecture, landscape, and the public realm since 1993. From 2010 to 2020, he was editor in chief of Landscape Architecture Magazine. He lives in Washington, DC, where he previously served on the board of Rock Creek Conservancy.