Walk, Run, Bike, Explore Proposed Town Branch Water Walk

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 18, 2015) – A little fresh air, a little exercise, a little information — it all comes together in Fayette County at this year’s 2^nd Sunday Lexington events beginning Sept. 20. From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. young and old can follow a dedicated cycle and walking track to explore the path for the proposed Town Branch Water Walk.

There will be three livableLex, 2^nd Sunday Town Branch Water Walks in Lexington this fall: Sept. 20, Oct. 11 and Nov. 8, all from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET. The walk begins at the corner of Vine and Limestone streets and concludes at Charles Young Park on Midland Avenue. Community partners will present fun family activities, food and music. Exhibits and listening stations will provide information about Town Branch, Lexington’s hidden waterway. Participants can also take part in a scavenger hunt for a chance to win prizes.

This is the eighth year for 2^nd Sunday, a community-based University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension program designed to increase physical activity and improve access to safe places to do so. It allows people to explore local opportunities for physical activity and improving health. With Kentucky ranking sixth in the nation for its obesity rate and only 12 percent of its adults achieving at least 30 minutes of exercise five times a week, family and consumer science extension agents around the state conceived the program as a way to combat those statistics.

Town Branch Creek, buried for more than 100 years, still flows beneath downtown Lexington. In 1775, settlers traveling along Elkhorn Creek’s middle branch, now known as Town Branch, discovered spring water. In time, that source of fresh water became the source of a young town, Lexington.

The Town Branch Water Walk was created by SCAPE Landscape Architecture PLLC, MTWTF, the Lexington Downtown Development Authority, Peach Technology and the UK Landscape Architecture Program, part of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, in collaboration with Bluegrass Greensource, the Fayette Alliance, Town Branch Trail, Lord Aeck Sargent, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Fayette County Cooperative Extension, Downtown Lexington Corporation, the UK College of Design and the YMCA.

For more information about 2^nd Sunday Town Branch Water Walks, visit http://www.2ndsundaylexington.com or call Fayette County family and consumer sciences agent Diana Doggett, 859-396-0579.