[image][discussion] Why don't we have more options for recreation without cars? I don't want access to nature to be gatekeeped behind car ownership.
It's always going to be gatekept to some degree, simply because wilderness areas are, by definition, far away from cities. As soon as you put public transit into wilderness, you're creating hubs that turn wilderness into not wilderness.
Best case scenario, you stop maintaining roads as anything more than dirt tracks slightly narrower than a car, and force people to ride bicycles to wilderness areas.
Only if the wilderness doesn't have strict laws protecting it.
I think this can be solved by strict urban growth boundaries around the transit stop.
One place where I think this works well is Catalina island off the coast of LA. There are a couple of villages where the ferry lands, but when you go outside the boundary you have hiking trails connecting camp grounds.
Being in LA, the camping tends towards glamping and there are is a pretty high density of hikers on the trails. But as far as LA county goes, I don't think there's a place with less urban sprawl.
You can have a bike path to the forest preserve going right alongside the road. Or a tram rail.
If it's wilderness then you don't need a separate bike path because the road itself is nothing more than a one-lane dirt track. Basically, your knobby-tire cyclocross or mountain bike would only need to 'share the "road"' with high-clearance 4x4s plodding along at 15 mph or so.
I don't entirely agree with this - there are many places accross the world where public transit stops at wilderness locations to allow people to access them without a car. It's a matter of making sure that you can't have any "development" around the transit stop.
There's a small park near my house that cannot be access from the street without walking across its parking lot. No sidewalk or trail entry, only a driveway.
I live in a car-dependent area, but luckily, there is a park about 20 minutes' bike ride from my house along decently safe routes that's right on the shore of the local lake. The downside is that, since you have to cycle downhill to get there, you have to cycle uphill to get back home. Part of the route to get to this park also goes through a small industrial area, with a bunch of truck entrances and an oil refinery.
Backpacking and bike is already a viable option in my country and it is the holidays I like the most. And I feel like it is more and more popular (my girlfriend job is to organise horse hiking for multiple days and it is awesome). Not going on the other side of the world but living even greater adventure nearby.
Backpacking exists.
Bikepacking exists