244 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



portation would take care of some of this market for driving for 

 pleasure. 



In any case, let's know what we are doing and whom we are 

 serving before we forge new and expensive roads through our open 

 lands, which are certainly limited in the metropolitan areas. 



2. Role of parkways. Driving should be made as pleasurable as 

 possible. Roads should be as scenic as possible, both through their 

 location and design treatment. However, that does not necessarily 

 mean that roads should be parks or in parks. Providing roads to 

 make parks accessible is one thing, but winding roads through parks 

 especially linear streambank parks, found in so many metropolitan 

 areas, is another thing. Many stream and riverbank parks with 

 roadways near the water cannot be used for anything other than 

 moving cars. This, unfortunately, is especially true in large cities 

 where the recreation supply is most limited. 



Certainly the role of the parkways needs to be restudied. The best 

 use of some of our choice recreation sites especially in or near 

 metropolitan areas may not be roadways. Roadways, be they 

 freeways with fast-moving, mixed traffic or parkways with slow- 

 moving noncommercial traffic, are still essentially moving people. 

 Is moving at 35 m.p.h. through recreational areas the best way to 

 use those areas or the best way to appreciate those areas? 



MAX M. THARP. Bicycle and hiking trails are important to many 

 people. With only limited additional cost, cross-country and local 

 bicycle and hiking trails could be provided on many of the highways 

 already built or authorized. The rights-of-way are generally wide 

 enough for these trails, and with the limited access highways 

 grade or road crossings would not be a hazard. Such trails would 

 be of particular value near the cities and through the rural-urban 

 fringes into the open country. 



Tying a system of bicycle and hiking trails into our regular high- 

 way network and our scenic roads and parkways would open up 

 the possibility for expanding our youth hostel program similar to that 

 in Europe. Hostels should provide overnight facilities and most of 

 them could be located in scenic rural sections of recreational sig- 

 nificance. The hostels should be close enough together so that hostel- 

 ers could take hiking or bicycling trips, spending each night in a 

 different hostel. Providing highway-oriented bicycle and hiking 

 trails would encourage our citizens and foreign visitors to take time 



