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The common proverb, “like father, like son,” applies to Edward Norton, who is embracing his father’s environmentalism spirit on his latest project.
Norton, 56, narrates the new one-hour PBS documentary From Rails to Trails, which chronicles the 60-year movement to transform abandoned railways into scenic, car-free public spaces that can be used for walking and biking by the public all around America.
For the A Complete Unknown actor, who starred in the 2023 climate change anthology series Extrapolations, the project hits close to home. Not only has he been a longtime advocate for the environment, but his involvement in From Rails to Trails has him following in Ed Norton Sr.’s footsteps.
From Rails to Trails/PBS
According to a bio provided by the Conservation Lands Foundation, of which the elder Norton is a founding chair, Ed Sr. is a former environmental litigator who founded the Grand Canyon Trust and co-founded the Rails to Trails Conservancy.
Of course, none of this was lost on his four-time Oscar-nominated son. “I knew about this effort in my growing-up years and hiked and biked on many of them,” Norton says of the rails-to-trails movement, which led to his involvement in N.Y.C.’s conversion of a former New York Central Railroad into the popular High Line elevated park and greenway.
He adds, “Then later, I was an early board member of the Friends of the High Line project and engaged ideas that I’d learned from Rails to Trails to help support it.”
Norton has also hit the trails all across the country and notes that he’s lost track of the number of trails he’s covered over time. “I have cycled on so many I couldn’t name them all,” he says. “I love one trail I did with my dad in Marin, Calif. And of course, I think the High Line is one of the great rail trail restoration stories in history!”
Directed and produced by Dan Protess and executive produced by Peter Harnik — whose 2021 book, From Rails to Trails: The Making of America’s Active Transportation Network, serves as the basis for the special — the PBS documentary showcases key moments that sparked this national social movement.
From Rails to Trails/PBS
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Additionally, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and other activists reflect on the complex legal and political landscape that led to spaces such as the High Line, Georgia’s Atlanta Beltline and the Illinois Prairie Path outside of Chicago.
Looking back on the movement as a whole, Norton says From Rails to Trails is a good way for viewers to reflect on the importance of projects like these — and what it takes to get there. “It reminds us what tenacious citizen activism can accomplish,” he says.
Recalling an anecdote he used to hear from his grandfather, Norton says, “All good ideas seem half-baked and unrealistic at first but, as my grandfather used to say: ‘What ought to be can be… with the will to make it happen.’ ”
From Rails to Trails premieres Wednesday, Oct. 15 on PBS and is available to stream on PBS.org and the PBS app.
