Stop and smell the roses or grab some food or chat with locals on the nation's longest greenway. Soon, traveling from Florida to Maine and back won't require a car.

The East Coast Greenway will stretch from Calais, Maine, to Key West, Florida, a 2,900-mile distance. The project will provide non-motorized users a unique way to travel up and down the East Coast through 25 cities and 16 states. Walkers, cyclists, runners and other active-transportation users will be able to travel on a continuous, firm and paved greenway with a route specifically designed to give travelers a traffic-free experience, East Coast Greenway Alliance, the non-profit organization behind the project.

"Our route has been chosen to provide the traveler with an ever-changing, interesting and scenic landscape, whether urban, suburban, small town, industrial or rural," the organization states on its website.

The greenway will provide access to public transportation as well as points of interest encountered along its route.

The alliance has been working on this project since the early 1990s, Seeker reported. It wasn't until last year, though, when the project really picked up some steam. Construction of the greenway relies on local development, giving each state or locality ownership over their stretch of the path. Separate pieces will then be connected to complete the greenway.

So far one-third of the greenway has been built. The East Coast Greenway Alliance plans to add complementary and branching routes to the project in the future.

"It's about seeing America at the right speed, where you can take in all of the culture around you," Dennis Markatos-Soriano, alliance executive director, told CityLab. "And you don't have a windshield between yourself and the community."



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