American Tobacco Trail - Triangle Area NC
 

I rode the entire ATT with a few friends yesterday and had a great time. About have of the trail in Chatham County is dual surface (paved + packed screenings). When the trail moves into Wake County it is packed screenings but with a good smooth hard surface. The trail around I-40 is still not complete requiring a foray into the traffic on Fayetteville Road. This is near a big mall and so is a bit of a challenge. The completion of the trail with the dedicated bridge over I-40 should happen next summer so things are going well.

We saw a lot of cyclists and quite a few tandems. Many "zombie-trudge" joggers,too.

I think it's great that the community invests in Rails to Trails Projects.

-G

I think its great that the communities invest in Rails to Trails too... But having a trail name with tobacco in it?? Weird!!

Yeah, I reckon is sounds a bit weird, but it is related to the area's history. The ATT runs along an abandoned rail line that was built for the American Tobacco Company, hence the name.

-G

How long is the trail? They (Putnam county FL) is about to start on the next section of trail that I ride on all of the time. The Palatka Lake Butler Trail. Right now we have about 14.5 miles of continuous paved trail.. The next section will bump that up to about 19 miles...

It's about 22 miles starting in urban Durham and running south into relatively rural Chatham and Wake counties. About a third of it is unpaved but the surface is hard packed screenings and almost as smooth as tarmac. The only issue is that the north and south legs are split by I-40 so to get from one to the other you have to travel some pretty busy multi-lane roads. They are constructing a trail bridge over I-40 but this won't be done until next Summer.

I see that the Palatka-Lake Butler trail currently goes from Keystone Heights to Grandin. Do they intend to run the trail all the way from Palatka to Lake Butler?
-G

Yep that is the plan for someday... Its actually supposed to go through Palatka to St. Augustine at some point in the future. (although it would not really be called the Palatka Lake Butler trail then..LOL). The trail is actually paved for another 4.5 miles east of Grandin to Holloway Road. Right now they are working on paving the "urban" section of trail that goes through Palatka and over the bridge on the St. Johns river. And on the St. Augustine end they just finished paving another segment. There is about 8.5 miles paved on that end starting close to I-95.

Short video of the construction on the bridge in Palatka... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGGvA5Qu6tk&feature=plcp

If your really bored and have some time I have quite a few videos of the trail uploaded to youtube... just search for zzOtherlandzz on youtube...