Independence Boulevard Trail

The Independence Boulevard Trail is one in a series of suburban trails in the Virginia Beach area for non-motorized use. The trail runs parallel to S. Independence Boulevard in two disconnected segments.

The northern section, which is at times adjacent to a utility corridor, runs between the Timberlake neighborhood at Green Meadows Drive to Lynnhaven Parkway. There trail users can pick up the Lynnhaven Parkway Trail to reach Lynnhaven Mall in the east and Salem High School in the west. Green Run High School—one of Salem’s rivals—is located midway along this stretch of the Independence Boulevard Trail, offering a safe route to school for thousands of students.

The southern section runs from the Salem Road Trail at its namesake road west to Indian River Road/State Route 603. The scenic Stumpy Lake Golf Course & Natural Area is located just north of the western endpoint.

Parking and Trail Access

There is no official parking for the trail. Access is via local streets, schools and parks.

Road Biking in VA Beach

July 2005 larry3

"VA Beach has a number of really nice paved bike trails, mostly along side major roads (including Dam Neck, General Booth, and Shore Drive) and along the beach front (parallel to the concrete boardwalk).

These are labeled ""asphalt shared use,"" and provide a smooth, safe and scenic ride, with a reasonable number of road crossings and other detours. Obviously, you need to be particularly careful of pedestrian and rental bicycle traffic ""in season"" along the beachfront.

Unfortunately, signage is minimal on most of these (I got rather confused trying to follow the ""park connector bikeway"" out of Mt. Trashmore Park, since there where no signs directing me toward Princess Anne Park).

Finally, it would be really great if the city government could allocate some funds to create similar ""shared use"" bikeway paths on the short stretches between the various longer ""shared use"" paths(riding on those ""widened sidewalks"" near the very commercially congested intersections can be very dangerous).

These little improvements would turn a good set of paths into a truly great riding experience."