Greenway (landscape)

For the pedestrian and cyclist network in Europe, see Voie verte.
Golf course in the Concordia neighborhood, one of many age-restricted communities with greenways in Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, U.S.
The High line, a rail-to-trail elevated linear park, is an urban greenway in Manhattan.

A greenway is usually a shared-use path along a strip of undeveloped land, in an urban or rural area, set aside for recreational use or environmental protection.[1][2] Greenways are frequently created out of disused railways, canal towpaths, utility company rights of way, or derelict industrial land. Greenways can also be linear parks, and can serve as wildlife corridors. The path's surface may be paved and often serves multiple users: walkers, runners, bicyclists, skaters and hikers.[3] A characteristic of greenways, as defined by the European Greenways Association, is "ease of passage": that is that they have "either low or zero gradient", so that they can be used by all "types of users, including mobility impaired people".[4]

In Southern England, the term also refers to ancient trackways or green lanes, especially those found on chalk downlands, like the Ridgeway.[5]

  1. ^ Oxford Dictionary of English
  2. ^ Encyclopedia of Environmental Studies by William Ashworth and Charles E. Little. New York: Facts on File, c1991.
  3. ^ "BUILDING CONNECTIONS... TENNESSEE GREENWAYS AND TRAILS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-10-18. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  4. ^ "Greenways", European Greenways Association
  5. ^ The Ridgeway Project Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine