American Tobacco Trail Phase II Grand Opening June 4

5/26/2005

The public is invited Saturday, June 4, to celebrate the grand opening of Phase II of the American Tobacco Trail (ATT), a recreational rail-trail located on an abandoned railroad corridor of Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Festivities will begin at 10 a.m. at the northern access point of the Wake County portion of the trail, on White Oak Church Road, west of Cary and near the Green Level community. Wake County Commissioners and Cary Town Council members will take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Beginning at 11:30 a.m., citizens are invited to take guided bike and hike tours of the 1.75-mile-long second phase of the ATT.

Wake County and the Town of Cary jointly purchased the Rafferty Property that is bisected by the ATT in August 2002. The total tract is 115 acres and was purchased for just more than $2 million, with Wake County and Cary sharing the cost. A total of 19 acres on the west side of the ATT was jointly approved to be used as an ATT access. The Town of Cary and Wake County will jointly and publicly plan the park/open space for the remaining 96 acres in the future.

"This area is centrally located in an rapidly urbanizing area where land values are ever increasing," says Commissioners' Chair Joe Bryan. "This trail will offer Wake County families a chance for some wholesome activity and enables us to protect some valuable open space."

With the opening of this 1.75-mile-long section (the 3.75-mile-long first phase opened in August 2003), only one mile remains to be built of the 6.5-mile-long Wake County portion of the trail, which, when completed, will extend from New Hill-Olive Chapel Road in New Hill to the Chatham County line just above Green Level Church Road. The trail offers a quiet and rural setting and is open to pedestrians, bicyclists and equestrians, with horse trailer parking available at its southern and northern trailheads.

"This second phase brings us one step closer to having the nicest rail-trail in North Carolina," says ATT Assistant Park Manager Tony D'Amico. "This will provide access to one of the longest – if not the longest – single, continuous stretch of trail in Wake County that ultimately will connect Wake Chatham and Durham counties."

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.

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 second 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 click here or contact D'Amico at 387-2117.

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