Missoula Urban Greenway System
Moving towards a natural city
The Missoula Urban Greenway System (MUGS) is about unleashing the incredible potential for safe and enjoyable walking and cycling throughout the Missoula Valley. A combination of connected urban off-street trails, fun and engaging neighborhood greenways and corridors of low impact nature areas make the backbone of this active transportation system. When combined with MASS and T-HUBS, Missoula can help all walks of life live a more sustainable and healthy lifestyle.
MIST has helped the Missoula community plan, grow and maintain the existing urban trail system. Recently, it seems the community has created enough trails to be the heart of a functioning system, and we now have to do the hard work of making all the connections between linear islands of path and trail. There still exists great opportunity along the rivers, creeks, rail lines, interstate, irrigation canals, power lines, and open spaces to make simple yet powerful trail links.
The City and County are in process of making master trail plans and seeking the next places for public funding to join our non-motorized system. MIST is here to help, advocate and promote as much as possible. In the past, we’ve built some of the trails, with volunteers, donated materials and borrowed tools and time. ]For the remaining connections to be made, we all need to make our voices heard.
Neighborhood greenways are an incredible opportunity to bring more enjoyment to the doorsteps of Missoula abodes. With tools such as flower pots, benches, garden plots, logs, murals and mulch, neighbors can create safer streets designed to move people, not just cars. The City of Missoula is an active partner and catalyst in this grass roots movement, with a robust and earnest effort to assist in this place-making and transformative development for our local community streets.
While our local government is doing what they can, they cannot do it all. The Free Cycles community bicycle hub is an ideal focal point for rolling up the sleeves and making the tools and devices to slow the traffic and increase the interaction of people. We are available to help make flower planters for a neighborhood traffic circle or street garden, or to help citizens navigate the processes for street improvements.
Often, traditional traffic calming has a focus on hard objects to force drivers to slow down. Our preferred method is to use softer objects to make people smile, ride a bike and take a walk down the street. Nature is the friend and natural materials are the binding agents of change. In fact, we could create the entire neighborhood greenway system overnight with just terracotta flower pots, placed and spaced just right (5’ apart, spanning a local street).
The key ingredient? You! And the people living next to you, and across the street and on the corner and one block over. This has to be a bottom up revolution of circular and natural design, stemming from neighbors chatting face to face. Please get in touch with us if you’d like some help making your street a greener and more sociable place.