By BTA correspondent John McLaren
The network of trails crisscrossing Vancouver and Clark County is the handiwork of Kelly Punteney, a recently retired trails and greenway planner, and for developing this network he has been nominated for an Alice B. Toeclips Award. Where bicyclists once wondered how to get around Vancouver, their horizons now extend across the river to Portland thanks in part to Punteney’s work and collaboration with Portland trail builders.
After graduating from the University of Oregon, Punteney found his calling when he signed on as an intern with the Vancouver/Clark Parks and Recreation Department in 1971. “His early work is the bedrock upon which our local citizens grew to be bicyclists on trails, then bike lane advocates and then Alice winners,” says Todd Boulanger, a senior transportation planner with the City of Vancouver and a 2005 Alice B. Toeclips winner.
Punteney’s legacy includes the Waterfront Renaissance Trail (12 miles from Wintler Park to Frenchman’s Bar Trail ), Discovery Loop Trail (2.3 miles), Burnt Bridge Creek Greenway and Trail (8 miles in 2 sections) and Frenchman’s Bar Trail (2.5 miles). The award-winning Waterfront Renaissance Trail may be the jewel of the system, connecting the downtown area to the shops and restaurants along the Columbia River waterfront. On a regional level, he helped promote the 40-Mile Loop, among other alternatives to travel by car.
Walkers and joggers as well as bicyclists can enjoy safe passage on the trails. Cycling enthusiast Terri Elioff likens the trails to “a bicycling estuary … a place for new cyclists to discover all that is the bicycle and a place for those of us in our second and third childhoods to rediscover the bicycle.”
Punteney, a recreational bicyclist himself, says the trails were designed as a system, like a road system, to be managed as a unit instead of meandering though the parks. At age 58, he is starting a new career in the private sector, where he will work as a consultant and developer on the type of projects he supported in the public sector.
Some 300 people helped salute Punteney at his retirement dinner Jan. 12. He was praised as a visionary by trails enthusiasts, tree lovers, parks advocates, school officials and friends. “It was overwhelming,” he says, “and they all paid 40 bucks a person.” His other claim to fame is his three-word speaking part in a 1968 John Wayne film, Hellfighters.
Congratulations Kelly. Excellent work and I wish you the best in your “new career.”