Cobb County commissioners this week agreed to spend more than $1.4 million to design and engineer portions of three trail projects, as the county pushes to make the sprawling suburb more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians.
The projects include $1 million to design the southern part of the Cumberland Sweep, a looping multi-modal trail that planners are billing as the county’s version of the Atlanta Beltline. The segment will connect the Cobb Galleria to I-285, where it would then cross a pedestrian bridge to Truist Park and The Battery and loop around to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.
Another study will begin preliminary planning work on the proposed Austell-Powder Springs Trail, a four-mile multi-use path that would connect the existing Silver Comet trailhead to downtown Austell. One of the county’s eight priority greenway projects, the path is a key piece in the county’s plan to connect all seven of Cobb’s cities through its trail network.
The county also solicited proposals for an engineering firm to design a third project that would extend the Noonday Creek Trail over Cobb Parkway and the creek using boardwalk ramps and pedestrian bridges.
The Austell study is budgeted at $300,000, while the creek study is expected to cost over $100,000. Both will be funded with local option sales tax dollars.
The bulk of the Cumberland Sweep study will be paid for with a $840,000 federal grant, with the county providing $210,000 in local matching funds.
Each of the projects is at an early stage. Construction on the Cumberland Sweep segment, for instance, is not scheduled to start until October 2024 and is expected to take three years.
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