This empty high-speed road in Chester City separates residents from their waterfront. It should instead become a community boulevard and the Delaware County section of the East Coast Greenway

750 miles of Circuit Trails by 2040. That’s the goal set out by the DVRPC, the Philadelphia region’s planning organization. 2040 seems like a long time away, so Bicycle Coalition, along with our partner organizations in the Circuit Trails Steering Committee, created an interim goal: 500 miles by 2025. This will get us on schedule to meet the long term goal.

At present the Circuit consists of about 340 miles of completed trail. So how do we get those missing 160 miles built by 2025? The steering committee has had about a dozen meetings where just this was discussed. First, we created an online pipeline manager that identified every segment and its obstacles to completion. Then we digested those findings and issued a report with 12 policy recommendations for how to achieve the interim 500-mile goal.

Most recently, we have created 9 Circuit Action Teams that will organize efforts at the county level, focusing on one trail each to push to completion by 2025. We created a Circuit Gratitude Campaign, which gives everyday folks a chance to reach out to their county elected officials to say thanks for the support they’ve given to trails so far.

Want to get involved? Click this link (scroll down to “email your local representative”) to send that email, and you’ll get put on a list to be contacted by your county’s action team! We have already logged our first win, and can’t wait to report on others. Join us today!