By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter

jevans@thepccourier.com

CENTRAL — Imagine a bike ride that would take you from Southern Wesleyan University, through downtown Central, through Clemson, up to the trails of the Clemson Experimental Forest — and all points between.

A project in the works would create numerous opportunities for biking and walking in a portion of Pickens County.

If fully realized, the Green Crescent Trail project could place more than 35 miles of trail in the Clemson and Central areas.

The Friends of the Green Crescent Trail and Alta Planning shared a draft recommendation, the results of a recent feasibility study, at a meeting held at Southern Wesleyan University last Thursday evening.

Chad Carson with the nonprofit group The Friends of the Green Crescent Trail said the group raised some funds to hire Alta Planning and Design to conduct the feasibility study.

Carson said the trail idea began with a group of community members all interested in seeing a pedestrian/biking trail in Central and Clemson, similar to the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville and Travelers Rest and the Doodle Trail in Easley and Pickens.

“To connect different locations in our communities,” Carson said.

He said the trail project is spurred by “quality of life.”

“There are a lot of benefits to the community in a lot of different ways — if you can connect town centers, downtown, parks, green spaces, all sorts of places in a town, all of those places will benefit,” Carson said.

A trail will attract more small businesses to town, he said.

“There’s economic benefits,” Carson said. “There’s social benefits. There’s community benefits. It’s pretty well documented how popular and helpful it’s been, because it’s happening all around the country.”

John Cock, vice president of Alta Planning and Design, said the project would “build on the great community strengths and partnerships that you already have.”

“This is a long-term vision,” Cock said. “There’s something in here for everyone.”

In addition to creating new trails, the project also seeks to improve the safety and comfort of existing walking and biking routes.

The Green Crescent Trail is an ambitious project, planners acknowledge.

“How do you eat the elephant? One bite at a time,” Alta associate Blake Sanders said.

Planners have broken the trail project down into phases, with both short- and long-term recommendations and priority recommendations.

The two priority recommendations are connecting the City of Central’s downtown with Southern Wesleyan University and a phase that would see a portion of the trail placed in Clemson along 18 Mile Creek.

Sanders acknowledged the two priority projects have hefty price tags, but he said planners were confident partners and sponsors could be found for the project.

Building a 1.4-mile on- and off-street trail connecting the SWU campus to Central’s business district is estimated to cost $3,097,000.

Spokes could be made tying into Central Elementary School and across the railroad tracks, Sanders said.

“Those things can happen,” he said.

Next steps for this phase include obtaining easements from property owners, construction fundraising, engineering/permitting, improving all road crossings and installing way-finding signage.

Building a 4.7-mile off-street trail in Clemson along 18 Mile Creek is estimated to cost $7,016,000.

“It is all new construction,” Sanders said. “That’s a long-term investment and a long-term goal.”

Next steps for this phase include obtaining easements from property owners, construction fundraising, engineering/permitting, installing a bridge over 18 Mile Creek and improving the crossing at Issaqueena Trail.

If everything comes together for this phase, a natural surface trail could open for use by the public within the next 12-18 months, with an asphalt trail opening 12-24 months after that.

Some of the short- and long-term recommendations presented in the study are running a path from Central’s downtown area to the Central Wal-Mart shopping center, a trail from Central toward Clemson along Highway 93, a corridor along Berkeley Drive in Clemson and a trail leading from the City of Clemson to the northern portion of the Experimental Forest.

Sanders said many of these smaller phases would involve re-striping lanes, making use of extra width built into some of the roads instead of eliminating lanes.

“How do we take the existing space that we have and make it work?” he said. “We’re not changing the road, but the way people use the road.”

The group will be making formal presentations to city officials in Central and Clemson this summer.

“We hope that they buy into it,” Sanders said. “We hope that they see that this is something that can be inserted into their comprehensive plan. That, as money becomes available for them, they think about this project.”

He encouraged those attending the presentation to be “trail advocates.”

“It’s about being involved (and) it’s about staying involved,” Sanders said.

Planners say a final comprehensive feasibility study will be completed by June 30. The study presented at the meeting can be viewed at http://www.greencrescenttrail.org/feasibility-study/.