THESE BIKERS FLYING SOUTH
Author: Chris Berdik
Section: City Weekly     Page: 8

Imagine biking from Maine's border with Canada all the way to Key West, Fla., avoiding roads almost the entire ride.

The East Coast Greenway Alliance is working to make it happen, and they'll be passing through Boston this week. On Tuesday, a group of nine alliance bicyclists who started out from Maine a week ago will ride into Boston, stay overnight, and then continue their journey, which is set to finish Nov. 3 at Florida's southernmost tip.

"People typically have two reactions when they hear about the greenway project," says Waylon Whitley, spokesman for the alliance. "The first is almost always, `Really? There's something like that going on?' And the second is often, `That's really cool. What can I do to get involved?' "

The alliance is composed of 16 volunteer state committees representing the 15 states and the District of Columbia through which the 2,600-mile, shared-use greenway will pass. Begun in 1991, 20 percent of the project is now on off-road paths. The goal is to have 80 percent off-road by 2010, using abandoned railroad corridors, canal towpaths, park paths, and waterfront esplanades. While the greenway will be marked with special signage and maps, the pathways it links will still be locally owned and managed.

The riders passing through Boston will represent the first people ever to travel the full length of the greenway, biking about 60 miles a day for 53 days.

On Wednesday, they'll head west along the Charles River Path on their way to Worcester, and from there on to Providence and points south.

Whitley says the alliance decided on the tour because the project had reached a stage at which it could capture the imagination of the communities along its route and gain critical support. "A project like this is so large in scale, and it takes so many people backing it to even make it happen," he says.

For more information, visit www.greenway.org.