Virginia Capital Trail
Greensprings | Chickahominy Riverfront | Sherwood Forest | Charles City Courthouse
New Market Heights | Four Mile Creek Trailhead | Randolph Landing | Richmond Riverfront
Benefits
The Virginia Capital Trail will offer a variety of benefits to residents, travelers, and localities along the trail.
Alternative transportation
The trail will be a transportation alternative for bicyclists and pedestrians, providing a safe, efficient, usable, and accessible place to travel.
It will provide community-based links between neighborhoods, schools, and recreation sites. It will also function as a long-distance link for those traveling along the Route 5 corridor, either for transportation or to visit the many historical, cultural, recreational, and scenic sites.
The trail can be used to encourage residents and visitors to try bicycling and walking instead of traveling by car, turning a trip into an experience.
Improved safety
Residents, commuters, truckers, tourists in larger recreational vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians currently share the narrow roadway of Route 5. The separate facility that will be the Virginia Capital Trail will improve safety for all users of Route 5. It will provide bicyclists and pedestrians an alternative, thereby reducing the potential for conflict between different travel modes.
Recreation
The Virginia Capital Trail will be a recreational facility for residents, as well as for bicycling and walking enthusiasts from across the state. The trail will offer a great opportunity for family recreation. The design includes accessiblity features, allowing those with disabilities to enjoy the trail.
In addition to being a fun place to ride and walk, the trail will provide links to recreational sites, including James City County's greenway system, Chickahominy Riverfront Park and Henrico County's new Four Mile Creek Park. The trail can be used for travel to other sites, including wildlife management areas and refuges and plantations.
Good health
The trail will promote good health by providing residents and visitors with opportunities for exercise, which is vital to preventing many chronic diseases.
Economic development
The Virginia Capital Trail will provide tourists with access to a unique concentration of scenic, natural, and cultural landscapes, historic buildings, archeological sites and recreation areas. It will draw tourists who specifically travel for trail experiences.
The trail will open economic development opportunities for services catering to its users, such as lodging, food, outfitting supplies, equipment repair and rental, and shuttles.
