The Memphis Greenline, Greenway, Greenspace, or whatever is finally opening this weekend. This is the latest addition to Memphis’s Rails to Trails projects. The trail starts at Tillman near my high school and runs 7 miles to Shelby Farms park.
This trail is an amazing addition to Memphis for lots of reasons. People in
My runners on the trail
the midtown area can easily bike out to ride the trails of the Wolf River. People in those neighborhoods can experience safe, shady walking and running trails. People of one socio-economic status are forced to literally walk through another’s. The trail starts in Binghampton where the majority of my students live. Don’t worry they get culture shock too. It took about fifteen minutes today for me to explain who all those white people in spandex were that ride behind their apartment complex. They were curious why old, overweight people would wear tight clothing, and that was a question that I realized had no answer.
The plans for the Greenline and Greenway do not end here. There are plans 
to extend the trails into Midtown, Downtown, Frayser, Fayette County, and others. Connecting Memphis will not only be logistically convenient, but it is a great picture of the Memphis that we are aiming for integrated, connected, and moving forward.
There are complaints of people of the dangerous nature of Binghampton. First of all, I think this is baseless for a few reasons: 1. There are literally hundreds of people on the trail at all times, 2. Most bikers and runners do not carry wallets, and 3. I have never felt unsafe there on or off the trail. Even if it was dangerous, is it that crazy that rich 
people should have to endure realities that the vast majority of our city have to face? Is it that big of a deal for these people to briefly ride through neighborhoods that kids grow up in and walk to school through? Maybe seeing first hand how most of the city lives will encourage others to get involved in helping to work towards a safer Memphis.
If you are a Memphian, they will be having block parties all throughout the trail on Saturday October 9th. Get out there and enjoy it.
http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/092910-new-trail,-greenline-already-big-success
(You can briefly see my runners and me in the video above)
Related Articles
- Editorial: Greenline: It’s a hit (commercialappeal.com)
- Greening up your weekend (commercialappeal.com)
awww.. on your burfday big brova.