Workers Started Walking Path that may Link Chickamauga to Cloudland Canyon State Park

Workers have started the first leg of a greenway that may one day link Chickamauga to Cloudland Canyon State Park on Lookout Mountain, an 18 mile walking path.

Walker County Road Department crews are preparing a 10-foot-wide paved corridor that will connect four city parks in Chickamauga in the first phase.

The route follows the old Durham Railroad that linked mountain-top coal mines at Durham to the beehive system preserved in Coke Oven Park.

The greenway will stretch from the 55-acre Crawfish Springs Wetland Park through Veterans Memorial Park, go under a railroad trestle, and continue on to Coke Oven Park.

(AP)

Ticket to ride: state lawmakers mull transit options

Columbus Deputy City Manager David Arrington
addresses the session. (Photo: Dave Bender)

State lawmakers continue a series of meetings around the state to come up with ways to improve Georgia's Transportation infrastructure. They are in Columbus this week.

Monday and Tuesday's sessions of the State Senate and House Transportation Funding Study Committee is the third of six such meetings.

Co-Chairman, Republican Senator Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga says the group is talking about a lot more than just funding:

"It's not just money; it's policywise, it's new technology that's come on-board, such as "HOT Lanes," which is "High-Occupancy-Toll-Roads" and new roads. We don't believe in tolling existing roads, but to create new lanes or new roads to do that, so that the user's paying for it -- and not just all the taxpayers."

Experts also talked to the committee about public transportation, air travel and port-facility improvement.

• Previous GPB News coverage of this issue is here.
• For more on this issue, click here.
• Detailed agenda and webcasts are here.

Presentation slide from the session illustrating
transportation modes within Georgia.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

In related news, the idea of a regional airport in northeast Georgia is gaining steam, with the re-activation of a dormant transportation commission. For more on that, click here.

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State announces land conservation grants

Two Georgia cities are getting special state grants for land conservation.

Tybee Island is getting a $206,000 Georgia Land Conservation Grant. Chickamauga is getting a $365,000 grant and an $875,000 low-interest land conservation loan.

Tybee Island will use the money to buy 14 acres on the north end of the island that are mostly salt marsh wetlands and maritime stand forest habitats. Chickamauga will use the money to protect the Gordon Lee mansion and grounds that date to the 1840’s.