OHIO RIVER TRAIL COUNCIL

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. 

—Susan B. Anthony

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bike.  

—John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States

If I can bicycle, I bicycle. 

—David Attenborough

Too often, the advocates of trails and linear parks along rights-of-way come up against officials who recognize only one kind of park–the squared-off kind that comes in chunks; and one kind of recreation–the supervised kind known as ‘organized sweating.’ Such officials refuse to acknowledge that there has been a change in US recreation trends, reflected in the phenomenal growth of hiking, biking, and horseback riding… 

—Constance Stallings

…. the bicycle boom is not a fad. It comes at (or is symptomatic of) a time when traffic jams are intolerable to commuters, heart disease kills too many sedentary executives, the population grows ever more pollution-aware and ecology-minded, and millions of people are looking to the simple pleasures of life. 

—Steve Sherman, Bike Hiking, 1974

The more I think about our US domestic transportation problem from this vantage point [China] the more I see an increased role for the bicycle in American life. I am convinced after riding bikes an enormous amount here in China, that it is a sensible, economical, clean form of transportation and makes enormous good sense. 

—George Bush, US Liaison Office, Beijing, China, 1975

We can tie this country together with threads of green that everywhere grant us access to the natural world. 

—President Reagan’s Commission on American Outdoors, Americans and the Outdoors, 1987

Imagine walking out your front door, getting on a bicycle, a horse or simply donning your backpack and within minutes of your home, setting off along a continuous network of recreation corridors that could lead across the country. 

—President Reagan’s Commission on American Outdoors, Americans and the Outdoors, 1987

The completed Great Allegheny Passage will bring in $100 million in tourism dollars. 

—Linda McKenna Boxx, President Allegheny Trail, 2013

Blue Trails are an organizing tool that galvanizes citizen support for clean water and healthy riverside lands. They inspire people to protect important habitat and provide corridors for people and wildlife.  While specific protections vary from community to community, Blue Trails are often associated with conservation easements, land acquisition, stream buffer requirements, stream flow protections, and higher water quality standards.

—American Rivers