Local & State Headlines

A path to the future

• Albany's North Trail riverwalk offers a rare opportunity for local residents to return to nature.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — As Ken Cribb and I make our way onto the North Trail riverwalk at Riverfront Park, a spray of monarch butterflies flutters up around us. I take it as a good sign.

Cribb, Albany Tomorrow Inc.’s project manager and a North Carolina A&T-educated engineer, is taking me on a riding tour of the recently completed trail, one of the Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax V projects managed by ATI for the city of Albany. During the 6-mile journey (both ways), we’ll encounter various species of native wildlife, avid walkers and bikers who’ve taken to the trail, and Cribb will detail the history of the project that is one of the jewels of Albany’s multimillion-dollar downtown redevelopment effort.

“Albany Tomorrow came up with a wish list of (development) projects, and the primary focus was to create a signature project that would make people want to get off I-75 and come here,” said Cribb, who came to Albany in 2000 when he was hired by then ATI CEO Tommy Chatmon. “We talked with people throughout the city and county: the commissions, the school board, different public and private groups, individual citizens.

“The one thing that came out of those discussions that really became the focus was that we needed to incorporate the river into what we did. The (Flint) RiverQuarium/Riverfront Park/Trail became the centerpiece of the development.”

After completion of the RiverQuarium and the park, ATI and city and county voters (in a sales tax referendum) turned their attention to completing the trail, which would tie the downtown area with the Parks at Chehaw in the northeastern corner of the county.

CHALLENGING START

“The original plan was for the trail to run from Chehaw, through downtown, to Radium Springs,” Cribb said. “But when budget concerns entered the picture, we had to change the scope. We had the park in place, so the logical step was to take the trail from the park to Chehaw.”

Work on the trail presented a number of logistical problems. Rights-of-way and easements had to be purchased or cleared, as the trail ran through property owned by Oxford Construction Co. and Georgia Power Co., and under railroad trestles owned by Georgia-Florida Railnet. The original location of the trail, which would have had it running directly adjacent to the Flint, was nixed by the Department of Natural Resources because of fears wrought by the floods of ’94 and ’98.

Finally, though, the project was green-lighted, and work began. However, the trail presented its own unique problems. More than 700 truckloads of trash, debris and natural flora had to be removed.

“But this was a nature trail,” Cribb said. “We did everything we could to leave things as natural as possible, to disturb the habitat as little as possible. You’ll notice that the trail does not run in a straight path; we made sure we chose a route that would keep things in a natural state.”

Of course, that meant finding ingress and egress routes for concrete trucks hauling their payloads.

“It was a challenge,” Cribb said. “They really had to maneuver those big trucks to get them in and out.”

Even while work on the trail was ongoing, a number of local residents found its serenity and natural beauty in the midst of a teeming inner city irresistible.

“I’ve got pictures that go back to when they started work on the trail,” said Norman Hannibal, a Merck retiree from Rahway, N.J., who is a regular trail biker. “It’s been amazing watching the process, watching this turn into a really wonderful place for people in the area. I have diabetes, and I ride my bike for exercise. It was dangerous riding the streets in this city.

“Now, it’s just a peaceful experience on the trail. I’ve got pictures of alligators, snakes, all kinds of wildlife. It’s such a lovely place.”

I count seven walkers/runners and three cyclists in the short time Cribb and I are on the trail. Some offer a friendly wave; others listen to music; still others press on with looks of determination, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings.

MORE THAN A RIBBON

The trail, it turns out, is much more than a ribbon of concrete winding unobtrusively through the outskirts of downtown. There are five observation decks that allow breathtaking viewing of the majestic Flint; a nature trail one and a quarter mile from Riverfront Park allows for a more intimate interaction with the land along the river.

A grill and benches on one of the observation decks in the Oxford Environmental Park allow for a secluded family outing among the maple, birch, oak and pine trees in the area. A nearby kiosk offers information about the wildlife indigenous to the area.

As we head through the trail’s most compelling feature — a split path that allows hikers/riders to pass through covered walkways under the historic Norfolk Southern/SFX Omni train trestle — a tiny turtle scuttles along the trail.

“We reached an agreement with (Georgia-Florida Railnet) that allowed us to put the two covered walkways under the trestle so long as we could remove them in a 24-hour period to allow (the railway) access to work on the trestle,” Cribb said. “We’ve already had to do that once. We designed a system that we can pretty easily move to give them access.”

Moving past the lush greenery of the trail, where some shaded spots are a good 10 degrees cooler than the surrounding area, there are only occasional reminders of the civilization that thrives just beyond its protective canopy. Full trash receptacles, a strewn sports drink bottle here and there, gang and lesser ominous graffiti mark the way and serve as reminders that total escape is not feasible.

When our mini-tour ends, I come away impressed. This is a quality-of-life project that, with a minimum of bells and whistles, features the best of Albany-Dougherty County. I plan to use the trail again, to bring the kids out and let them enjoy natural wonder that has nothing to do with the trappings of 21st-century gadgetry.

The city, county and ATI have given the area a wonderful gift. It’s a gift I feel inclined to share.

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