Long in coming, Athens-Clarke County’s rails-to-trails project has passed a major land-acquisition milestone and ought to have plans before the Mayor and Commission perhaps by year’s end. This first phase of the project will create a multi-use bike/pedestrian path along the old Georgia Railroad bed from downtown’s Multi-Modal Transportation Center through Dudley Park and then roughly parallel to Oak Street to the planned site of a park-and-ride lot where Lexington Road meets the 10 Loop.

Rail-trail planners closed at the end of June on a key land purchase: the large lot containing the old rail bed from East Broad Street near the Multi-Modal center to Wilkerson Street. (It cost almost $1.3  million, but a Federal Transportation Administration grant covered more than $785,000 of that, with SPLOST 2005 funds covering the rest.) The tract stops where the former river bridge, demolished in 2000, carried the rail line over Wilkerson Street and the North Oconee River into Dudley Park. Its acquisition has been the most daunting of the entire trail section inside the Loop, so the purchase is an exciting step forward for the whole project.

Also daunting for rail-trail planners is the task of getting the trail across the river and, just east of that, Trail Creek. Having been demolished, the river bridge is completely missing except for some pilings. And the remaining Murmur Trestle over Trail Creek—so named because a photo of it appeared on that R.E.M. album—has stood un-maintained since its eastern end (near Poplar Street) was torn down the same summer as the river bridge. All along, the trestle has inspired the rail-trail project by offering a level route over steep topography into downtown.

While rail-trail planning has progressed, however, the trestle has apparently deteriorated. A structural engineer’s report to the SPLOST “user group” on the project indicated that it’s very unlikely the trestle can now support the path, according to user group member Mike Wharton of the ACC Leisure Services Department. But grappling with the fate of the trestle has taken up tremendous time and energy within both the SPLOST user group and the ACC Rails-to-Trails Committee. “At the end of the day, somebody’s got to sign off and say it’s safe to use,” says ACC Commissioner Andy Herod, who now chairs the citizen committee. “If you could save it and use it for the rail-to-trail, that’s great,” he adds, “but I think the ultimate determination is going to be, ’Is it safe to use?’”

None of the issues are easy. If the trestle cannot remain, citizens involved in the user group and committee have expressed a strong preference for a steel structure that emulates the look of the trestle. Options involving keeping the trestle while building a new structure have been explored, Wharton says, but they would be neither simple nor cheap. The most feasible construction option at the best price is to use modern materials like steel, Wharton says. “And then from there,” he asks, “is there a significant tradeoff in cultural importance that makes it worth doing something different?”

“There’s the local, cultural, music scene aspect of it, and then there’s the practicality,” Herod says. The level route is critically important to a successful trail, after all. He adds, “It’s something that we are very sensitive to, but at a certain point it’s going to come down to, ’What is more important to you?’”

For former committee chair (and ex-Commissioner) Carl Jordan, an equally important question facing the rail-trail project is which direction to build it in: from downtown outwards or from the Loop in? The first option would involve more expense in going a much shorter distance—just from downtown to Dudley Park—but Jordan sees great value in connecting the two via a river bridge with stunning views. Since full build-out of the trail inside the Loop will have to wait for future funds (perhaps from SPLOST 2010), the question is a significant one.

None of these questions are settled yet, but the the user group will make official recommendations to the Mayor and Commission when the project goes to a work session some time this fall or winter after review by the State Historic Preservation Office, Wharton says. The rail-trail committee has discussed holding a public forum on the project some time after the work session, and interested parties have been hoping to watch the project move forward. Because it involves the historic trestle, Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation director Amy Kissane says she’d like to see more public involvement. “I feel strongly that SPLOST projects that involve significant resources in the community deserve public input beyond a small SPLOST committee,” Kissane says.

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com