Dan Casey

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Years ago when I used to haul my son, Zach, around town in a bike trailer, we met another cyclist at a downtown Roanoke coffee shop. He informed us he'd ridden from the city's far southwestern corner — about 4 miles.

"And I stayed off the roads almost the whole way," he added.

"How'd you do that?" I asked.

"Paths and alleys," he replied. He called it his "secret route."

The paths he cited were like those that run through Fishburn Park and the Murray Run Greenway behind Patrick Henry High School. But the alleys weren't shady gaps between downtown office buildings. He meant residential alleys.

These narrow, usually gravel corridors run through many Roanoke neighborhoods, usually in between abutting back yards. Often they serve as an entrance to rear driveways. City trash collectors pick up garbage in some of them. Otherwise, they're virtually free of traffic.

Since this past winter, I've been exploring a number of alleys. One day recently, Zach and I (he's on a Trail-A-Bike now) rode from Patrick Henry High School to Crystal Spring Elementary School in South Roanoke, which is more than 3 miles. With the exception of a couple blocks, I managed to stay off city streets almost the entire way. You could extend that to the top of Mill Mountain, and take the almost-all-off-road distance to 6 miles.

Fast and cheap

The alleys are notable considering a cause that has gotten a fair amount of attention in recent years: greenways. Ten years ago in Roanoke, there were no greenways at all. Now, bits and pieces of them here and there are a testament to greenway advocates' progress. These short paths (usually a mile or so) connect some neighborhoods and wind through some Roanoke and Roanoke County parks. Their greatest utility, however, is as corridors connected for longer distances, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to stay off roads. So far, we're far from that goal, although a handful of people are making some behind-the-scenes progress toward it.

I want to jump-start those efforts with a suggestion: Designate certain residential alleys as greenways.

For the cost of some crosswalk paint and some caution signs for motorists, the city of Roanoke could provide "instant greenways" for its residents. It might even go down in greenway-development history as the fastest and cheapest greenway network ever established.

Is that possible? Absolutely. Is it likely? That's a lot more doubtful. As one of my cynical bike pals puts it, "The city will never go for it. It's too simple, too cheap and makes too much sense."

Alley greenways would be inexpensive

Perhaps the greatest single impediment to greenway development is the cost. An asphalt-paved path, such as the one through Roanoke's Smith Park, costs $250,000 to $300,000 per mile just for the materials and labor, says Liz Belcher, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Greenways Commission. Cinder greenways, such as the Wolf Creek greenway in Vinton, cost about $60,000 per mile.

Of course, some greenways are free — Murray Run in Roanoke's Raleigh Court neighborhood, which volunteers built and "paved" with wood chips, is one. The Star Trail on Mill Mountain, which is off-limits to bikes, is another.

Dan Casey | The Roanoke Times

This gravel alley connects Patrick Henry High School to Blenheim Road in the Center Hill section of Raleigh Court in Southwest Roanoke. It runs parallel to a narrow and busy section of Brandon Ave.

The beauty of alleys is that the surface already is down — there's little to no cost for that. In some spots it is asphalt, in other places gravel. Some Old Southwest Roanoke alleys are paved with gorgeous old yellow brick, and some of the alleys in South Roanoke are concrete. Sure, there are rough patches and potholes here and there — but you can find those on roads, too.

The other great drag on greenways is the time they take to develop. Years — decades, in some cases — pass between the greenways concept and the reality. That's because governments usually seek right-of-ways over privately-owned land, and they have to haggle, piece by piece, with many different landowners who often (and understandably) are reluctant to give up their land. In some cases cities seize the land through court action. Such a process takes forever and can create huge community and relations problems.

But the city of Roanoke already owns all of the alleys and their right of ways. No bargaining with landowners is needed; no raiding of the treasury is required.

Radical notion

Brian Yourish, a program coordinator for the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in Washington, D.C., says he knows of no other city in the nation that has taken an existing alley network and converted them to greenways, although a couple of other cities in the south have at least discussed similar plans.

In that sense, such a move on Roanoke's part could raise its stature considerably among organizations that promote "livable" cities. Recreation and transportation alternatives already figure prominently in the calculations for that designation.

An alley/greenway network would keep children off area roads as they develop their bicycling skills. The same goes for adults — many of whom have pathological fears of sharing roadways with 4,000-pound hunks of speeding metal.

But it also would put more cyclists, pedestrians and dog-walkers in other folks' back yards. And for every homeowner who enjoys ready access to a hiker-biker trail, there are others who fear more peering eyes.

Another alley in the Raleigh Court area. These narrow corridors often are used by homeowners as rear driveways. In many cases, they keep their trash bins back there, which city crews pick up once per week.

Not so revolutionary

This is not a new idea. City planners have kicked it around for years, and every time it resurfaces, the idea is dropped like a hot potato.

One of the reasons is bureaucratic. The Streets and Traffic Department maintains alleys, while the Parks and Recreation Department is responsible for greenways. "There's been quite a lot of argument about that in the city — who's going to do the maintenance," Belcher notes.

Another reason is that for many years, the city had an unwritten policy that called for alleys to be given to neighboring landowners who asked for them.

Barbara Duerk, who lives in South Roanoke and used to serve on the Roanoke Planning Commission, says that occurred most often with "paper alleys," which exist on property plats but have never been built. Homeowners have been known to fence these areas in, build sheds on them, and in some cases petition the city to give up the land.

During her stint on the commission, Duerk fought the turnover of paper alleys. But "I didn't get too far because there are some people on the planning commission that would like to just get rid of all of them," Duerk said. "The rationale there is, because of the cost of alley maintenance, and liability of alleys being public property, the city was trying to reduce the number of public alleys that it had.

"The city justifies by doing this by saying, well, it increases the tax rolls. ...Well that's minimal compared to the public access that is lost forever."

More recently, "we have several members who understand that sustainable community designs are important to quality of life in a community," Durek adds.

But there's still nobody pushing alleys as greenways.