About a bicycle trail in Missouri, over there somewhere, outside our Same Old Box.

Adaptive reuse.

Bringing people to places they'd otherwise not go.

Connecting wider areas by means of multi-modal transport options.

More effective economic development expenditures covering wider areas.

Just reminding myself that it's possible. Living where we do, it's easy to forget the wide expanse of terrain outside the self-imposed limitations of The Box, but we must try to remember.

Missouri towns see another path to prosperity — a bicycle trail along the old Rock Island Line, by Kasia Kovacs (Kansas City Star)

... He bought and renovated the hotel and now has enough patrons that his business is up and running in the black. And he’s expecting far more visitors in anticipation of a new project from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources: the Rock Island Trail.

Lawson is one of many business owners preparing for the state department to finish conversion of the out-of-use Rock Island Railway into a hiking and biking trail. The trail would stretch about 200 miles in Missouri, from Pleasant Hill, a town half an hour southeast of Kansas City, to Beaufort in the south-central part of the state. It also might loop with the Katy Trail, creating 400 miles of the longest rail-converted trail system in the country ...