The public is invited this Saturday to celebrate the grand opening of the Wake County portion of the American Tobacco Trail (ATT), a recreational rail-trail located on an abandoned railroad corridor of Norfolk Southern Railroad.
Festivities will begin with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Commissioners' Chair Herb Council will serve as master of ceremonies, and Congressman David Price will be among the featured speakers. Afterward, citizens are invited to take guided tours of sections, or all, of the 3.75-mile-long first phase of the ATT, which extends from a parking area on New Hill-Olive Chapel Road (between U.S. Hwy. 1 and U.S. Hwy. 64) to a trail access lot on Wimberly Road just north of Hwy. 64. Commemorative water bottles, along with bottled water to fill them, will be given to citizens attending the celebration.
"We're excited about the opening of the County's first rail-trail," says Commissioners' Chair Herb Council. "This trail will offer Wake County families a chance for some wholesome activity and to learn a little history at the same time."
The Wake County portion of the trail offers a quiet and rural setting. The trail is open to pedestrians, bicyclists and equestrians, with horse trailer parking available at its southern terminus.
"This is the just the beginning stages of something that's going to be great," says ATT Assistant Park Manager Tony D'Amico. "There's so much potential here for this to be the nicest rail-trail in North Carolina."
Constructed in 1906, the original railroad traveled from Duncan to Durham near the New Hope River, transporting tobacco leaf from farming communities in Wake, Chatham and Durham counties for processing at the American Tobacco Company in Durham – hence, the trail's name.
When completed, the ATT will be a 23-mile-long, multi-use, recreational trail that traverses rural, suburban and urban areas of the Triangle from western Wake County, through northeast Chatham County, to downtown Durham near the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The trail is being built in sections, the first of which opened in 2001 in downtown Durham.
The 6.5-mile-long Wake County portion of the ATT will extend from New Hill-Olive Chapel Road in New Hill to the Chatham County line just above Green Level Church Road. Construction of the second, 1.75-mile-long phase of the ATT will take place next year, and the third and final 1.0-mile phase will be completed when Chatham County's section of the trail is in place.
As the first rail-trail in eastern or central North Carolina, the ATT reflects its location – paved in urban settings and rougher in rural areas. A hard-packed surface covers the Wake County portion of the trail, making it wheelchair accessible.
The ATT's former life as a railroad ended when tracks were removed in 1987. Local residents began using the corridor as an informal recreational trail, and in 1989, a group of citizens organized the nonprofit Triangle Rails-to-Trails Conservancy to promote development of the corridor into a managed rail-trail. The N.C. Department of Transportation purchased the corridor from Norfolk Southern in 1995, and subsequently leased it to the counties to be developed and operated as a recreational trail open to the public.
With the opening of the first Wake County section of the ATT, the project is well on its way. Although the 4.6-mile Chatham County portion of the ATT is not yet open to the public, Durham County currently manages a 7.4-mile paved section north of Interstate 40 to downtown Durham.
For more information, please contact Assistant Park Manager Tony D'Amico at 387-2117.