Sandy Springs weighs $33M trail plan that would link to Atlanta, neighboring cities

Sandy Springs officials are mulling a potentially $33 million plan that could grow the city’s network of multi-use trails by more than 30 miles.

Next week, the city council is expected to vote on the Sandy Springs Trail Master Plan, a project that would create paths for cyclists and pedestrians that extend from north to south of the city, linking to neighboring cities and potentially—by way of PATH400—the Atlanta Beltline, according to Reporter Newspapers.

The project is ultimately intended to better connect Sandy Springs to Roswell, Cumberland, Dunwoody, and Buckhead.

The initial “model mile” for the project would connect Marsh Creek, to the east of the Chattahoochee River, to the Sandy Springs Tennis Center, just southwest of the North Springs MARTA Station.

The pilot project, as well as a trail linking Ison Road, Morgan Falls Park, Roswell Road, and the North River Shopping Center—plus a bridge over the Chattahoochee River at Morgan Falls—is scheduled to be complete sometime in 2021, according to the publication.

Blueprints for the project, which were drafted by the PATH Foundation, were unveiled this past summer, and a feasibility study was conducted by the Sandy Springs Conservancy.

Connecting the new trail network to the growing PATH400 is projected to happen after an initial 10-year implementation phase, officials say.

Ditto for links to the Crooked Creek Trail in Peachtree Corners, the East Palisades Trail at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Roswell’s Big Creek Greenway, Cobb County’s Hyde Farm, and the Cumberland Trail Network in Marietta.