With the opening of the Monon Greenways Trail to Downtown, Indianapolis was a good site for a regional greenways transportation conference last week.

The Mid America Trails and Greenways Conference, with about 450 participants, showed how greenways have become an accepted form of recreation and transportation.

Advocates of the idea could have fit in a small room several years ago. But now legislation to build more trails has been revived in Congress thanks to a vigorous lobbying effort by greenways advocates. Candidates for office at the municipal level also are including the issue in their campaigns.

In Indianapolis, off-road biking, hiking and running trails are turning out to bring unexpected benefits to neighborhood and economic development.

The state, however, has a long way to go to catch up with trail systems in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. What's missing in Indiana are long stretches of 50-mile trails, such as the Little Miami River Trail in Ohio between Dayton and Cincinnati.

"Indiana is woefully far behind surrounding states in trail development," says Connie Schmucker, executive director of the Indiana Bicycle Coalition. "Only Kentucky is further behind Indiana in our immediately adjacent states."

In contrast, Indianapolis has a growing trail system, including the recently opened extension of the Monon Trail to 10th Street. Others in Indiana are noticing the benefits of trails. Fort Wayne Republican mayoral candidate Linda Buskirk visited Indianapolis this summer to learn more about how trails have tied in with economic development. "What I saw in Indianapolis was how you really capitalized on the trail system, to have destinations," she said.

"It's a wonderful model," she added, noting how shops and restaurants have developed near the Monon Trail.

The city's bike trail system also gets bipartisan political support.

In the City-County Council District 4 contest, Republican Scott Schneider and Democrat Kip Tew have plenty of disagreements. But in meeting with The Star editorial board, they found rare agreement on bike trails.

"The next generation of workers is looking for quality of life, not just the job," said Tew, citing the greenways trail system as one example. "You can't put a price on what the Monon Trail does for this community."

Schneider agreed, calling for expansion of the trail system. "There's a new sense of community in Nora," he said. "I think the Monon has brought that."

What's missing at the state level is a vision for a comprehensive trail system. "We are sort of focusing on a regional basis," says Steve Morris, streams and trails coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources. "We're not quite where we need to be to focus on a statewide basis."

Longer trails in other states have produced economic benefits. Schmucker says visitors to Ohio's Little Miami Trail spend $2.4 million a year in Warren County alone.

Schmucker thinks a statewide trail system could give Indiana an intangible boost. "We don't have mountains, and we don't have an ocean," she said. "But the southern part of the state has wonderful scenery and topography. We have some natural resources that could be developed into an asset, such as linear trails."

Trails may rank behind more pressing issues in next year's race for governor. But in the debate over what the state should look like in the next quarter century, a statewide plan for trails ought to be part of the debate.

Pulliam is associate editor of The Star. Contact him at 1-317-444-6001 or via e-mail at russell.pulliam@indystar.com .