7 minute read
Forging a path
from At Home, Fall 2019
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File photo Earlier this year dozens of volunteers with Oak Ridge’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail Committee cut a .4-mile trail through the woods in the 130-acre Cascades Preserve, northwest of Oak Ridge, as part of statewide eff orts to move the nearly 1,200-mile-long MST from busy roads to woodlands. The new trail segment, which opened May 3, crosses this stream in three places and connects with a 2.8-mile trail already within the preserve, which is owned by Guilford County.
Summer eld plans to celebrate the opening of the U.S. 220 pedestrian tunnel and sidewalk Oct. 5, while Oak Ridge continues work on Mountains-to-Sea Trail
by CHRIS BURRITT SUMMERFIELD/OAK RIDGE – After the opening of the U.S. 220 pedestrian tunnel and sidewalk, Summerfi eld is throwing a party on Saturday, Oct. 5, to celebrate the long-awaited path for cyclists and runners. Meanwhile, Oak Ridge is pulling out the hoes and rakes, preparing to build another stretch of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST). Whether celebrating or getting their hands dirty, trail supporters in Summerfi eld and Oak Ridge share a common vision: providing routes that are more scenic and safer for hikers, joggers and cyclists than traveling on roads.
That’s the primary goal of volunteers statewide who are relocating the nearly 1,200-mile MST from busy roads to woodlands. Almost 700 miles of the footpath from Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains to Jockey’s Ridge on the Outer Banks run through woods and fi elds. That leaves another 500 miles, including most of the section in northwestern Guilford County, following roadways.
Oak Ridge’s MST Committee recently began building an approximately 1 ½-mile trail along the Haw River from Pepper Road to Linville Road. Earlier this year, volunteers fi nished a 0.4-mile section of the trail northwest of town. The Oak Ridge Town Council has embraced the trail, putting $50,000 in the current year’s budget for building the new section of the trail and a trail head parking lot and kiosk. It also appropriated $250,000 to build a halfmile sidewalk connecting two off -road
sections of the trail so hikers don’t have to walk along the road.
The town is waiting to hear whether it will get a $50,000 state Recreational Trails Program grant that would defray costs for trail building, according to Martha Pittman, co-chair of Oak Ridge’s MST Committee.
Eventually hikers will follow a sidewalk on Linville Road to Oak Ridge Town Park before heading east on N.C. 150 toward Summerfi eld. “Ideally, Oak Ridge’s MST would connect to Summerfi eld at the Haw River on Eversfi eld Road,” Pittman said. “As Summerfi eld works west and Oak Ridge works east, we will need to work together to make sure that happens.”
In Summerfi eld, moving the MST off road is several years away. Meanwhile, the town is preparing to celebrate the Aug. 30 opening of the pedestrian tunnel under U.S. 220 that NCDOT built in 2012. A new sidewalk runs from the western end of the tunnel to Summerfi eld Road.
Both the tunnel and sidewalk keep runners and cyclists off the highway. Summerfi eld Mayor Gail Dunham told the Town Council last month her neighbors rode their bikes through
Photos by Patti Stokes/NWO The trail in Cascades Preserve off Goodwill Church Road in Oak Ridge is now part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. (Right) Scouts and leaders with Cub Scout Pack 943 based in Kernersville enjoyed hiking on a segment of the MST in Cascades Preserve the afternoon of Sept. 29.
the tunnel and followed the Atlantic & Yadkin (A&Y) Greenway into Greensboro to eat breakfast.
“People have been waiting for this for years,” Councilman John O’Day said. “I can’t tell you the number of people who have come up to me and are just super excited to have the tunnel open.”
The council set aside $1,500 for town staff and the Trails and Open Space Committee to organize what committee chair Jane Doggett called “a community walk through the tunnel.” It is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, at the eastern entrance to the
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