NC Rail-Trails's news items
Atlantic Coast Line Rail-Trail
(Cumberland, Sampson, Pender & New Hanover Counties)
West Pender Rail Trail Alliance was formed with Susan Bullers elected chair. She has gone before the Pender County Commissioners for an endorsement as a part of the County's park and recreation program. The vote has been postponed waiting for a recommendation from the County's Park and Recreation Advisory Board.
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EarthShare NC to be Included in Progress Energy Giving Program
For the first time, North Carolina Rail-Trails will be included as a giving option in the Progress Energy Employee Giving Campaign this year. We will be included as one of the 63 environmental organizations that are represented by EarthShare North Carolina in workplace giving campaigns across the state. We’ve been informed that the process for adding new groups can be slow and that it may take some time before our names appear on the giving site; however, ESNC organizations will be listed before the campaign ends on July 31st.
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Public Input for Rail with Trail along SE High Speed Corridor
Planning to support the Southeast High Speed Corridor has added a trail concept to SEHSR from Petersburg to Neuse River at Raleigh. Four (4) local workshops open to the public were held in North Carolina during May and June. The website presents information on the alternative routes under consideration and links to numerous studies of rail-trails in other States. For further information on the progress of impact studies and other work being done by the NC Rail Division please contact David Foster.
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Spring 2009 Little Toot Newsletter
The SPRING 2009 edition of Little Toot has been posted to our web site and mailed out to members and others preferring to receive the print version.
Some highlights include:
- North Carolina Rail-Trails took a major step toward strengthening its Web presence at its April board meeting by agreeing to solicit proposals for a new Web site design as part of a 12 to 18-month ramp-up. This new design will build on the Legal page and News page added recently and facilitate longer term plans for a searchable data base, maps of trails and projects and digital image galleries. The design will be based on a Content Management System in order to allow all of our Board to post content. Our RFP was released May 5. Design work should start by early July and we hope to have the new site operating by mid-September.
- Long term development of the Washington - Greenville Rail-Trail and Greenway is now officially underway. A kick-off was held on April 17-19th at the Cycle NC weekend event. Maps and a brochure can be downloaded from our Maps page.
- Our Board of Directors welcomes two new members: Steve Smutko--an extension specialist at NCSU for a 3 year term and Alison Carpenter, a bicycle and pedestrian planner for a two year term.
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Hendersonville to Brevard Rail-Trail
A group of citizens including some public officials has recently formed a two counties "Friends" group to support the establishment of a 18.5 mile rail-trail between the two cities on a discontinued Norfolk-Southern RR rail corridor. The group has posted a PETITION to request State and local governments to partner to create the first State Rail-Trail. On May 7th, the Hendersonville City Council unanimously adopted a resolution supporting a regional trail between Hendersonville and Brevard on the discontinued Norfolk-Southern RR corridor. The resolution specifically mentions the recreational, tourism and economic benefits of such trails as well as the need to preserve the corridor for possible future rail service.
Michael Oliphant, the NCRT contact in Hendersonville and leader of the local citizen rail-trail effort, made a fine presentation on behalf of the resolution. Blue Ridge Now.com recently reports that recreational enthusiasts are continuing to pursue a rails-to-trails project in Henderson and Transylvania counties, but Norfolk Southern railroad seems unwilling to abandon the line.
A suit against Norfolk Southern attempting to stop a railbanking was recently dismissed by a federal court in Asheville. Individuals have agreed to tasks including to insure that NCDENR continues to be motivated to make this trail the first state owned and managed rail-trail, obtaining the positive formal resolutions from three governmental units in Henderson County and obtaining the public endorsement of the trail by the developer redeveloping the shuttered Ecusta paper mill near Brevard. This developer initially asked that the rails not be taken up pending its decision on what uses would be envisioned at the brownfield redevelopment. Subsequently, their plans have not included any industrial uses in the redevelopment.
Connecting up with the Brevard Bike Path (as described above) would connect this trail to the Mountains to the Sea Trail. This would add some additional cachet or distinction to this trail. Also state law, NCGS Sec 113-34.1 provides specifically that the NC Department of Administration may acquire lands to turn over to NCDENR for the purpose of developing and managing the MST. And it specifically provides that no new legislation is required as is required in the case of adding new state parks. This project reporter believes that the trails act permits the acquisition of land for the NCDENR for a state trail without requiring legislative approval as a new state park. A new state trail connecting to the MST would have an additional basis for such an argument.
For more info on Brevard area projects contact Michael Domonkos at (828) 884-7648.
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Bike Safety Month in NC
A Safety Brochure released by the Bicycle & Pedestrian Division contains some timely reminders for both motorists and the cycling community.
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Help Save the Recreational Trails Program!
American Trails has put out an Action Alert to inform the trails community that action is needed to ensure the Recreational Trails Program (RTP) is included in the authorization of the next multi-year surface transportation bill. The RTP has benefited every type of trail, every state, and virtually every community across the country. In North Carolina, the Highland Rail-Trail in Gastonia and the Dunn-Erwin trail have been recipients of RTP grants in recent years. American Trails has formed a Coalition for Recreational Trails (CRT). The Coalition is looking for champions in Congress to support the Recreational Trails Program and to ensure it is included, along with increased funding, in the next authorization bill.
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Atlantic Coast Line Rail-Trail
(Cumberland, Sampson, Pender & New Hanover Counties)
NCRT Chair, John Morck presented Ali Turpen Director of Parks and Rec. a Purple Spike award for the county¹s and Roseboro announcement of planning a trail on the ACL in Roseboro. (picture of AL Capehart, David Alexander, Ali Turpen of Sampson County (holding purple railroad spike), John Morck at North Carolina Rail-Trails meeting, Roseboro, NC)
In Pender County an organizational meeting of trail stakeholders on February 27th in Burgaw formed the West Pender Rail-Trail Alliance, Susan Bullers, Ph.D. chair. Ben Andrea, Pender County Planning, Secretary. Ben presented a very informative power point assessment of the entire corridor in Pender. On March 27th, 28th, & 29th national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy did a public informational sharing with adjacents and the public at Moore¹s Creek Battleground in Currie. Folks were notified by the county of the plans for a rail trail. Big landowners favored, small landowners didn't. New Hanover County has planned for the trail to be in the corridor with Hwy 421, and have experience with such a design.
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Deep River Rail Trail
(Randolph County) Franklinville - Randolph County Steering Committee met February 11th, March 11th and April 1, 2009. The bids for excavating and surfacing the parking lot and trail were received and Poe Construction got the job. The local highway division will be contracted to do the railbed ditching with a motor grader. NCRT has drafted a Conservation Trail Easement for the Town of Franklinville and WalkSoftly LLC to transfer the railbed to the town for a public trail. NCRT submitted a $5K Adopt A Trail grant request to State Trails for funding the trail study and legal requirements for getting the trail through Luckenback's industrial site. Notification will be in September 2009. NCRT submitted a Z. Smith Reynolds grant for 35K/year for two years. The grant is under review and notification will be made in June 2009. Upcoming: June 6th 2009 National Trails Day will be the official celebration for the opening of the first section of the Deep River Rail-Trail in Franklinville, NC.
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Coastal Carolina Rail-Trail and/or Washington-Greenville Greenway
<(Pitt and Beaufort Counties)
The committee met January 27th, February 23rd and March 24th 2009 in the Washington Parks and Recreation Conference Room. Dilys Bowman joined the committee to help with their W-GG Brochure and did a Backway Bicycle Map for a bicycle connection between Greenville¹s North Campus Crossing and Washington¹s Water Front WITHOUT having to be on Hwy 264. Lamarco Harrison, Greenville Parks Planner, joined the committee, has begun concept development of a greenway trail from North Side River Park to Campus Crossing and the W-GG in Pitt County. Upcoming: Next meeting is Saturday April 18th a 1pm in the conference room and in conjunction with CYCLE NC Spring Ride Events April 16th-19th based in Washington, NC where the committee and NCRT will distribute brochures and maps.
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