Rich hopes work on Mount Berry Trail can start this year
♦ Project runs from Little Dry Creek out to the Armuchee Connector.
Rome City Manager Sammy Rich is optimistic that bids for construction of the Mount Berry Trail, which runs along the west side of the Oostanaula River from the Armuchee Connector down toward Little Dry Creek, can be sought and ground broken before the end of the year.
Rich, in a presentation to the Rome-Floyd Chamber of Commerce Hospitality and Amenities committee Monday, also said he hopes a new joint Rome-Floyd County Trails committee can get off the ground soon.
“The easements agreements are in Berry’s court now to be approved where we are on Berry property,” Rich said. “We’re very close now, we’re moving.” Once that trail is complete, and tied into the Redmond Trail which will connect to the existing trail at the end of the levee on that side of the river, Romans will have a loop trail of close to ten miles along the rivers
without a single road grade crossing.
There is still one big hiccup to that connection. The Redmond Trail connection, which ties the levee trail to the Mount Berry Trail, is still waiting on formal approval from Norfolk Southern railroad to cross underneath the trestle that takes rail traffic across the Oostanaula River at the Rome-Floyd County ECO River Education Center.
If the county is not able to get the easement from the railroad before work on the Mount Berry Trail gets started, the Mount Berry Trail would end on the north side of Little Dry Creek. Hikers and bikers would have to come out to Martha Berry Boulevard along the Little Dry Creek drainage basin which goes underneath the highway near the U.S. Post Office. That project is being funded by a transportation grant the Floyd County received years ago and was salvaged for local match purposes by contributions raised by the fledgling Trails for Recreation and Economic Development (TRED) organization.
Local trail enthusiast Harry Brock, who sat in on the committee meeting Monday, said one of the major keys to trail development in Rome and Floyd County moving forward is to find ways to put an emphasis on trails for actual transportation purposes, not merely recreational use.
Brock showed the committee a picture of seven bikes behind the Las Palmas Restaurant. “These people probably use the trail to get to work. We need to think beyond the recreational use of these trails and consider the options of transportation,” Brock said.