Frequently Asked Questions about the Rails to Trails project

The City of Oak Ridge first started working on Rails to Trails in 2017. The concept – turning abandoned CSX rail from the east side of Oak Ridge to the center of the city into a greenway.

“It will help connect residents, businesses, schools, really be a nice amenity to the community. It will tie in to Melton Lake Greenway, it will tie near Emory Valley Greenway," said Jon Hetrick, Director of Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks.

Hetrick said doing so creates a bicycle and pedestrian connection through the east side of the city.

You won’t see work starting yet – but work behind the scenes is well underway and many Oak Ridgers are even wondering if the project is stopped altogether.

“Well the project really isn’t stopped, there’s not a lot of visible work going on but the project is being funded through a federal grant money through the Department of Transportation, Tennessee Department of Transportation and so theres a process that you have to go through, a lot of steps that you have to go through, in the design of the project and the acquisition of the right away for the project then moving on to construction," Hetrick said.

The city is using A. Morton Thomas and Associates, Inc. (AMT) for the engineering.

“They finally were able to get the right way plans approved for the project, and so we now have the notice to proceed for the right away acquisition, and they are in the process of identifying subconsultants who will help with the actual purchase of the property and negotiating the property sale and doing the actual sales transaction,“ Hetrick said.

A step that Hetrick says is important. He says once they can acquire the rail line from CSX, the city can complete final design plans to put it out to bid to construct the greenway.

Since the rail line has been abandoned for over twenty years, a lot of brush is piled on top of the rails. Once the city acquires the property, CSX will pick up all the rail line and ties.

“Part of the transfer process with the rail line is that CSX will actually come in and they will remove the ties and the rail lines themselves, that’s part of the transfer process, so when they do that they will actually clear out a lot of this and we will end up with a bed of the gravel base from the rail line and that will give us a starting point to build up for the greenway trail,“ Hetrick said.

The initial design work for the project is accepted and approved so the next step is for the city to purchase the rail line. Once that’s complete, the city can look at the final design process and construction process next.