rails
to
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community connections
Jim Oberstar and other
advocates to craft a legislative
agenda to advance walk-
ing and biking nationwide.
Building on federal transpor-
tation legislation, she helped
define several programs that
would carry the bike/ped
movement beyond the individual project
stage to one advocating safe active-trans-
portation systems around the country
for people of all ages and abilities.
In 2000, Deb worked tirelessly on
implementation of the Safe Routes to
School Pilot Program in Marin County,
one of two participating sites. It incorpo-
rated the Mill Valley-Sausalito Path—one
of the nation’s pioneering rail-trails—
into its plan. Deb’s dream to ensure a
fully funded national program would be
advanced in 2005 with passage of a Safe
Routes to School Program in Congress’
SAFETEA-LU transportation legislation.
She also was vital in securing the
ratification that same year of the
Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot
Program (NTPP), for which Marin
County served as one of four test
communities in the United States.
Additionally, she helped form the NTPP
working group charged with guiding the
initiative to completion.
Marin County NTPP efforts
included restoration of the 1,100-foot
Cal Park Hill Tunnel as the lead project,
closing a regional network gap between
San Rafael and Larkspur and providing
expanded access to the San Francisco
Bay Ferry. Opened in 2010, the Cal Park
Hill Tunnel stands as a national model
for how the recycling of old rail facilities
and application of innovative designs
can help reconnect America’s com-
munities. NTPP would be responsible
for averting 85.1 million vehicle miles
traveled as opposed to biking or walking
between 2009 and 2013.
Deb’s persistence and efforts helped
lead to the founding in 2005 of the Safe
Routes to School National Partnership,
for which she served for many years as
executive director. Safe Routes to School
programs now operate in all 50 states
and Washington, D.C.
“Deb was a friend and tireless advo-
cate who never relented in her drive to
make Marin County and all of America
a healthier place,” said RTC President
Keith Laughlin. “While she departed
this earth far too young, she leaves a
legacy that most humans could not hope
to achieve in 100 years.”
In honor and gratitude for her pas-
sion and accomplishments, RTC named
Deb its 2015 Doppelt Family Rail-Trail
Champion, a designation that places
her among a special group of visionaries
who’ve made remarkable contributions
to rail-trails. RTC notified Deb of this
designation shortly before she passed
away in August. A set of benches located
above San Francisco Bay, south of the
Cal Park Hill Tunnel, bears an inscrip-
tion honoring Deb’s memory and her
selection as Rail-Trail Champion.
“ ere are few for whom it can be
claimed that they were necessary to the
advocacy efforts that brought walking
and biking to the fore in American com-
munities,” said Marianne Wesley Fowler,
RTC’s senior strategist for policy advo-
cacy and a longtime friend and colleague
of Deb’s.
“Deb stands among them, and she
will be missed.”
—Amy Kapp
The stunning Hiawatha bike and
pedestrian bridge along the Midtown
Greenway in Minneapolis
TONY WEBSTER
Greenway Coalition (
midtowngreen
way.org
) was first organized in 1992 as
a collection of like-minded volunteers.
After nearly a decade of property nego-
tiations, organizational changes and gov-
ernmental interventions, phase one of
the rail-trail opened in August 2000.
“ e Midtown Greenway is the
crown jewel of rail-trails,” states
Marianne Wesley Fowler, senior strate-
gist for policy advocacy at RTC. “It’s
integral to the city’s transportation pat-
tern. e trail’s incredible usage anchors
that whole system.”
e trail is so popular among com-
muters, Jensen says, that it even has a
rush hour in the afternoon. Because it is
plowed in the winter and lighted at night,
it’s used at all hours and in all seasons.
“[ e Midtown Greenway] has truly
forged the way for [Minneapolis] to
become one of the lead communities
in America for walking and biking,”
Fowler says.
—Danielle Taylor
2015 RAIL-TRAIL CHAMPION
In Memory of Rail-Trail
Champion Deb Hubsmith
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy was deeply
saddened by the passing of friend and
colleague Deb Hubsmith on Aug. 18,
2015, after a two-year battle with acute
myeloid leukemia. She was 46.
Deb was a passionate and gifted
champion for many of the advances the
nation has seen in trails and bike/ped
policy and practice over the past 20 years.
As a leader of the Marin County
Bicycle Coalition in California, which
she helped found in 1998, Deb worked
with the late Minnesota Congressman
COURTESY LOVE HEALING DEB BLOG
Deb Hubsmith,
RTC’s 2015
Rail-Trail
Champion
