The dream of taking the Noonday Creek Trail from Cobb County to downtown Woodstock has taken another step forward.
The Atlanta Regional Commission’s staff recommended that the agency award Woodstock a $2,534,669 grant to build a trail extension. The ARC will hold public hearings on this grant and other proposals for months.
When the Noonday Creek Trail opened in September 2014, there was always the plan for it to connect into Cherokee and lead into downtown Woodstock.
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But it's expensive work, and other priorities arose, like making sure the trails around booming Cumberland area and SunTrust Park were set for the influx of visitors.
The 10-foot-wide trails stretches for seven miles from Town Center and ends at Bells Ferry Road Northeast, which is just east of Town Center.
This ARC money would extend a trail from Woodstock across U.S. 92 and jut two miles into Cobb, connecting to Noonday Park on Shallowford Road. It'd still be a few miles short of actually connecting the paths.
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“We’ll continue to help Cobb County connect in the future,” said Brian Stockton, Woodstock’s director of economic development.
He said the ARC often invests in a lot of “last-mile” connectivity projects.
When asked in September 2016, Cobb transportation planning division manager Eric Meyer said it'd be between five and 10 years before the paths were linked. He couldn't be reached for comment about the ARC reccomendation.
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For a big-picture view, Meyer previously said that the corridor from the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Cumberland to downtown Woodstock is 27 miles. Of that, 79 percent either exists or is under construction.
The ARC's public review and comment period runs until Jan. 16. You can find information about submitting a comment online. There will be a public hearing Jan. 11 at the organization's Atlanta office, 229 Peachtree St. NE, at 10:30 a.m.
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