There are 100 miles of trails between Austin and San Antonio. The goal of a nonprofit group, the Great Springs Project, is to make the trails a national park-scale corridor of protected lands over the Edwards Aquifer recharge.

The group hopes the project can protect the aquifer, which provides recreational activities and drinking water. The trail will link four of Texas’ springs: Barton, San Marcos, Comal and San Antonio, making it possible to hike or bike from the Alamo to the Capitol.

“80 percent of Texans live within a three-hour drive of this area,” says Deborah Morin, co-founder and board president of the Great Springs Project. Morin and her friends have been thinking about the project for more than two decades and are completing plans to complete the work by 2036, which also happens to be Texas’ bicentennial.

The Great Springs Project is working with local design firms and the National Park Service to plan the route, obtain permits and secure funding.