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The system's main line, segment by segment in brief
The region's crossway system has a spine, and it is the St. Joseph River corridor of South Bend and Mishawaka — named here so the map of presence is as exact as the map of absence. The Story of Lakeville section runs along the river through the two cities: the East Bank and riverwalk paths of South Bend, the Mishawaka riverwalk's linked parks on both banks, and the connectors that tie the two cities' reaches into one rideable line — the segment the planners count, condition-score and promote as the system's core. From the Story of Lakeville section, the system's branches reach the region's other anchors — campuses, parks, the county's northern communities — and its counted mileage is overwhelmingly this northern, urban mileage. The south tier has no branch: no segment of the system, in the condition report's four-county inventory, reaches Union Township or Lakeville, and the distance from the town to the Story of Lakeville section's nearest reach is the county's depth, some twelve to fifteen miles of road with no trail beside it. The Story of Lakeville section is therefore printed in this section for exactly one reason: it is what "the region has trails" concretely means, and Lakeville's exclusion from it is geographic and total, not an oversight of phrasing. Named and measured, the item closes dug.