On Wednesday, community members in Franklin gathered at Eastern Flank Battlefield Park to hear from Ron Carter of Carmel, Indiana talk about his city’s success with trails and greenways.
Carter took office as a city council member in 1996 in Carmel and helped build the Monon trail, which has drawn millions to the city and, according to Carter, helped Carmel in winning a spot in CNN Money Magazine’s top 12 best U.S. cities to live.
Carter spoke about thinking of trails and greenways as “linear parks”, saying that they can connect “box parks”, or traditional parks. Franklin had already been thinking this way, outlined in the Parks Master Plan to study making a trail connection between Pinkerton, Bicentennial and Eastern Flank parks.
Also, a river walk trail to go along the Harpeth is under consideration by the city, as well as a multi-use trail to connect Mack Hatcher to Pinkerton Park and downtown Franklin.
Many active Franklin community members and town officials attended the event, which was put on by Franklin Tomorrow. Questions from the audience were mostly centered around quality of life, but Carter said that most people care more about tax dollars, at least in Indiana.
“Linear parks are by far the best value for tax payer dollar per acre,” Carter said at the event. “It takes about $350000 to design and engineer the trails, plus they’re a money maker.”
Carter said that the five mile Monon trail in Carmel connects multiple amenities that people want to use, such as pools and the recreation center as well as some restaurants. Developers like that as well because if their residential developments are built near the trail then they aren’t having to spend as much on those types of things and can spend more improving the interior design of the house.
Carter said it takes about seven years on average to build a trail due to how long it takes to get federal grant money and the resources and people to build the trail. He suggested using volunteers to help make the process faster and to help with maintenance after the trail is built.
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