curt's blog

About 400 persons attended the March 28th presentation on the economic and planning studies for the proposed Ecusta rail-trail. Many elected officials from the counties and cities along the line came out to hear the presentation and ask questions. The Hendersonville Times News and WLOS ran stories on March 29th. A fairly complete account of the meeting and current outlook can be found in a March 29th BlueRidgeNow.com article.

An additional series of Community Presentations is planned for several locations during April and May. In an effort to accommodate as many schedules as possible, these are all "drop in" type events. Several stations will be set up to allow closer access to maps and knowledgeable folks who have information to share. Any formal presentations will be short and repeated many times over the course of each event: 

Thursday, April 26- 5:15 - 7:45pm

Henderson County Public Library, Hendersonville Branch

Tuesday, May 1- 4:00 - 6:00pm

Homestead Small Business Center, Horse Shoe

Thursday, May 3- 4:00 - 8:00pm

Rogow Room at the Transylvania County Library, Brevard

Thursday, May 10- 5:00 - 7:30pm

First Congregational Church, Laurel Park

Saturday, May 19- 9:30am - 12:30pm

Etowah Public Library, Etowah

Our latest newsletter is out and contains a great article on the work of the Elkin Valley Trail Association to plan and organize efforts for the long-term development of a two county rail-trail. The trail will be built on a corridor formerly used by the Elkin & Alleghany RR in Surry and Wilkes Counties.  NCRT has been an active supporter of the efforts of the Association to gather local support and broaden their fund raising efforts. We also highlight our 2011 donors and preview our Leadership Circle, a new program for donors that can support us beyond the basic membership level.

Over the next few weeks, North Carolina's DOT is hosting a total of seven public meetings around the State to get public input on how to spend transportation dollars. DOT is hoping to educate members of the public as well those serving on local Metropolitan and Rural Planning Organizations (MPOs and RPOs) on the financial challenges associated with addressing transportation needs for highways, bike/ped, transit, rail and other needs during the 2013-2022 period. These meetings provide a nice opportunity to tell the DOT just how important State non-highway funding is to rail-trail and greenway projects. For more info and the dates and locations of these "summits", please see the DOT Flyer.

The Association has been busy this Winter in doing trail clean-ups. Their next workday is scheduled for Saturday March 10th. Plans call for volunteers to help clear a section of the proposed Elkin & Allegheny Rail-Trail. Volunteers will meet in the parking lot to the right of the Recreation Center at Elkin's Municipal Park on Hwy. 268. For more on this workday and other efforts by the Association, please see the Association's web site https://elkinvalleytrails.org/
Workday Update: At least 36 volunteers came out for the Association's March 10 workday and cleared about a mile of trail from the first crossing of Elkin Creek to the second crossing at the Town reservoir.

Bills being considered in both Houses of Congress include potentially large changes to long standing programs that have been used by States and by local governments to develop and improve bicycling and walking trails and support popular initiatives such as the Safe Routes to School program. You may already be aware that last week the US House of Representatives voted to eliminate funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs. There will be a vote in the Senate in the week of Feb. 13-18, and Maryland Senator Cardin is sponsoring an amendment that could restore much of what's been lost. North Carolina Senator Richard Burr is considered a key vote on this issue. For some specifics please see this Summary of the Cardin Amendment. You can contact Senator Burr via his web site.

The planning and economic studies for the proposed Ecusta Trail between Hendersonville and Brevard have been completed and are being reviewed by city staff. A public presentation of the findings has been scheduled for 6 pm on March 28th in Hendersonville. The presentation will include recommendations for trail surface, width, support facilities, detailed maps, prospective trail heads and implementation strategies. Representatives from Henderson and Transylvania County will be there, as well as the media. This is a great opportunity to come show your support. The specific venue for the meeting will be determined after County officials have a better estimate of the numbers expected to attend. If you would like to attend please contact Summit Results.

February 21 Update: County officials were pleased with the interest shown and have reserved the West Henderson High School Auditorium for the presentation. The High School is at 3600 Haywood Road (Hwy 191).

March 31 Update: About 400 interested supporters attended the presentation. See the article about the event at BlueRidgeNow.com NCRT Board member Mike Domonkos attended and notes that NCDENR has indicated that this could be the first NC rail-trail state park or NC state rail-trail. (State park status would require enabling legislation as is the case for all new State Parks. Creation as a state rail- trail would be possible under existing legislation.)

An additional series of Community Presentations is planned for several locations during April and May. In an effort to accommodate as many schedules as possible, these are all "drop in" type events. Several stations will be set up to allow closer access to maps. Knowledgeable folks who have information to share, and any formal presentations will be short and repeat many times over the course of each event:

Thursday, April 26- 5:15 - 7:45pm

Henderson County Public Library, Hendersonville Branch

Tuesday, May 1- 4:00 - 6:00pm

Homestead Small Business Center, Horse Shoe

Thursday, May 3- 4:00 - 8:00pm

Rogow Room at the Transylvania County Library, Brevard

Thursday, May 10- 5:00 - 7:30pm

First Congregational Church, Laurel Park

Saturday, May 19- 9:30am - 12:30pm

Etowah Public Library, Etowah

From a sidelink on a recent health article we came across information on the Atlanta BeltLine, a very large, multi-year project taking shape in Atlanta. The project will use  a former rail corridor and tie this into more than 33 miles of multi-use trails in a linear park that will connect 40 Atlanta parks, including approximately 700 acres of existing park land. The multi-use trails include the core 22-mile loop plus various extensions to increase connectivity to parks and trails surrounding the BeltLine. The corridor will also include a light rail system. Planning and organizational efforts have been underway for over 7 years and involves most City departments, Atlanta's mass transit authority and numerous community organizations and businesses. The core loop will facilitate both recreation and commuting since it will conect to a number of mass-transit stops. Due the large size of the Atlanta metro area, this project has a scope and complexity far beyond anything we'll see in North Carolina anytime soon. The project is useful as an instructive example of the many benefits that connective trails can provide to an area. The BeltLine website has links discussing economic benefits, community engagement, reducing congestion and of course the healthy outdoors exercise that users will be able to experience on the corridor and in the parks it connects to. Several maps of the proposed loop and its many connections are also on the site.

The town of Franklinville has been awarded a grant of $36,000 from Asheboro's Randolph Hospital Community Health Foundation. Franklinville expects to use $30,000 of the grant to go towards bridging Sandy Creek: some of the funds will go towards a short bridge where the creek is narrow, near Highway 64, and the rest will be put towards a later bridge at the site where the rail line used to cross Sandy Creek. The money will help to connect Franklinville to the neighboring town of Ramseur, which is collaborating with Franklinville on the Deep River Rail-Trail. The remaining $6,000 will help to fund a boat landing on the Deep River. The Randolph Hospital Community Health Foundation funds health and wellness projects that focus on one or more of four areas: nutrition, physical fitness, obesity or substance abuse.

At their recent meeting, Franklinville Mayor Perry Conner noted that he expects to issue a request for proposals (RFP) by the beginning of March for work on Phase 2 of the Deep River Rail-Trail. This work will be funded by a Recreational Trails Program grant. In addition, Franklinville received notice from NCDOT that the town will transfer (on paper) an old bridge in Bladen County to Franklinville in the spring; the bridge itself will probably not arrive until 2013. This bridge, part of NCDOT's Bridge Reuse program, is of a size that could be used to bridge Sandy Creek at the original rail crossing site.

Over the past few months our Exec. Director has been busy with groups in Harnett County interested in creating a 1.5 mile connector trail between the Erwin end of the Dunn-Erwin Rail-Trail and the Cape Fear River Park Trail (a 1 mile trail). This would create 7.5 miles of contiguous trail and connect Dunn and Erwin to the Cape Fear River. The ~16 acre Cape Fear River Park was bought by Harnett County with funds from the Parks & Recreation Trust Fund and is used regularly by walkers, fisherman and canoeists. Bringing the two trails together will increase the usage of both trails and connect the rail-trail to much needed amenities such as a bathroom, picnic tables and a parking lot. On January 24th NCRT facilitated a public meeting in Erwin to gather public input on the proposal and present drawings of the proposed layout. The proposal was well received by the 38 attending, all of whom were trail users. Currently NCRT is working with Erwin in the preparation of applications for a Recreational Trails Program grant (for construction) and an Adopt-A-Trail grant for signage. Funding for this connector trail depends on the results of these pending applications and other sources so at this time there are no firm dates for the project. We'll be reporting on this again here and on our Facebook page as news develops.

On November 4th, Perry Connor, several volunteers from the Faith Chritian School and Tom Duckwall of Greensboro worked for several hours on various improvement and maintence tasks including: digging a drainage ditch on the upper side of short access trail, removing grass from edges of trail & around the rock, tidying up mulch around information kiosk, sign & bench, raking leaves out of side ditches on the access trail, installing an “Ancient Fish Weir” sign beside the steps, & “Unimproved Trail” sign at Sandy Creek end of trail, and cutting up and removing downed pine logs lying in drainage ditch, & other downed tree just past Harvey’s access road. They were also able to clean up around the fish weir steps & down at river bank and to rake leaves from a large part of trail and some of the side ditches. This is still a fairly short trail but Perry is interested in finding volunteers for future workdays. If you would like to volunteer for Deep River trail efforts, you can reach Mr. Connor at 336-549-4908 or by Email.