Cultural Trail is ‘premier bicycle facility’

I really enjoyed Kathleen McLaughlin’s “Bike City” article [Oct. 14], with one exception. All of us who worked on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail: A Legacy of Gene & Marilyn Glick over the past 11 years believe that referring to the Cultural Trail as “a super-wide sidewalk” does a significant disservice to the trail and its impact on our city (which is well-documented in the same issue’s page 26 article on how the trail has been the catalyst for transformation in Fountain Square.)

Since words matter, the Cultural Trail could be described as “a curbed, buffered, highly designed, richly landscaped and artfully lighted bicycle and pedestrian path.” A shorter version could be “a highly designed bicycle and pedestrian path.”

A sidewalk—of any kind—does not connote being a premier bicycle facility.
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Brian Payne, president and CEO,
Central Indiana Community Foundation