What's the status of the Swamp Rabbit Trail expansion?

It's been three years since Greenville city leaders decided to shift millions of dollars from a long-stalled connection of the Swamp Rabbit Trail to Lake Conestee and focused instead on helping Greenville County pay for another ambitious extension.

Today, work is underway on the "Greenlink Greenway" — a four-mile extension of the trail from Cleveland Park along Laurens Road to CU-ICAR — but while county officials say the project is on schedule, there is no indication of when exactly it will be done.

In the meantime, as the county negotiates with private landowners to complete the stretch, the city is taking a little more than $1 million of $3.5 million it had set aside to help cover costs for the trail expansion and beginning its own work on trails and bike paths.

The $1 million will go toward exploring smaller-scale projects both related to the extension and not — including a tie between the extension and Haywood Mall, a spur from Cleveland Park to an undetermined bridge across Laurens Road, a mountain bike trail in the Nicholtown area, protected bicycle lanes on three city streets and potentially a trail connecting the Greenville Zoo with McBee Station.

The promise of an extension has sparked residential and commercial investment along the Laurens Road corridor and raised the hopes of users who find the remaining stretch of the trail from north of Travelers Rest into Greenville overcrowded.

Progress is being made.

The county has recently pulled up steel rails from the abandoned rail bed that the trail will follow, though officials implore the public not to tread on the space prematurely because of safety concerns, said Ty Houck, director of Greenways, Natural and Historic Resources for the Greenville County parks system.

While grading work begins, the county continues to negotiate with private property owners on a portion of the trail between Cleveland Park and South Pleasantburg Drive that will finish the link.

Any attempt to estimate a completion date would be "arbitrary" because the land hasn't been secured, Houck said.

“The county is happy with the progress we’ve made," he said. "The process is moving on as expected, and we expect good accomplishments in 2018.”

The city at one time had set aside $2.3 million in hospitality tax money that was dedicated to extending a one-mile spur through the Greenville Country Club that would have connected the trail between Greenville Tech and Lake Conestee park.

The talks stalled, and in January 2015, the city moved on and pledged $2.5 million to help build pedestrian bridges across Haywood Road and Verdae Boulevard for the Laurens extension.

In that time, another $1 million in trail expansion money has sat in waiting as the city watched for progress and anticipated costs rising, which they appear to have, City Councilwoman Amy Ryberg Doyle said.

Earlier this month, the city council voted to spend a portion of that money while continuing its $2.5 million commitment to the county.

"The city is happy to support the county of Greenville's work on the Swamp Rabbit Trail," Doyle said. But, she said, "we should be doing our own trail projects annually,"

The Laurens extension will connect new neighborhoods and benefit new projects such as the Camperdown Academy, which Doyle said is committed to outdoor classrooms and exercise. The work is focused on keeping a grade of less than 5 percent to ensure maximum accessibility, she said.

The $1 million has been split into a handful of potential projects. The first steps are to spend a little more than $200,000 for studies on three top priorities: how to create the trail from Laurens to Haywood Mall, the Cleveland Park connector and creation of protected bike lanes.

The remainder is set aside for construction.

“We’re excited to get rolling on these," said Mari Steinbach, the city's parks director. "This is the first of what we hope is many years of continual funding to help build connectivity throughout our entire community.”

The connector to Haywood Mall, known as the Laurel Creek Trail, would use sewer easements off the busy Haywood Road corridor and would require up to three street crossings and pedestrian bridges.

The idea for the Laurel Creek spur was included in a 2012 bicycle master plan, though at the time envisioned alongside Haywood Road.

“We’re following through on that initial gesture," said Edward Kinney, the city's senior landscape architect. "Ideally that will link Haywood Mall to the Laurens Road extension.”

The city is set to issue a request for proposals on an $85,000 feasibility and engineering study, Steinbach said.

The Cleveland Park extension would connect with a trail bridge over Laurens Road, though the exact bridge location hasn't been determined. The city is spending $15,000 for preliminary engineering.

Meanwhile, another $15,000 will be used to help complete the Sliding Rock Mountain Bike Trail, which will run through Green Forest Park in the Nicholtown community. The park land is wholly owned by the city.

The project was adopted by the Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association, which is responsible for mountain bike trails at Paris Mountain, Kinney said. The city will use the money to create an entrance to the trail with signs, kiosks, benches and trash cans.

The largest chunk of initial spending will go toward studying the feasibility of protected bike lanes, which offer a buffer between cars and cyclists and have become popular in other U.S. cities.

The city has identified three streets to study — a 1.5-mile stretch of Townes and Richardson streets, a one-mile stretch of Washington and McBee streets, and a one-mile stretch of Pendleton Street that would connect between the West Greenville arts district and Main Street downtown.

The streets were selected based on criteria that take into account demand, economic development, connectivity and economic equity. A request for proposals is being written.

A fifth project, a potential trail between the Greenville Zoo and the McBee Station mixed-use center anchored by Publix, remains grouped within the city's initiative but has yet receive funding.

The city is exploring the use of a swath of land it owns between the two destinations that runs parallel to East Washington Street, Kinney said. The land could also be used for additional zoo parking, he said.

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