Cross country athletes at Wofford College have to use surrounding Spartanburg trails for many different athletic training, including long runs and “easy run days” where they practice distance instead of speed.
Over the past few years, walkability has become an increasing priority for Spartanburg as a whole, inherently benefiting the athletes on this team. The Mary Black Rail Trail, which goes from E. Henry Street to Country Club Road, is a large part of this new focus.
A significant extension to the trail is expected to be completed in the coming final weeks of 2022 and will connect the E. Henry Street end of the existing Rail trail all the way to E. John Street across from Barnet Park.
Philip Stone ‘94, Wofford’s archivist and chair of Spartanburg’s planning commission, stated that the project will be Spartanburg’s first protected bike lanes and hopes it will bring a “new and urban look” for Spartanburg.
This expansion will increase walkability and bike-ability down parts of Union, E. Kennedy, and N. Converse streets and will be 0.6 miles long, potentially helping to keep Wofford’s student athletes safe.
Construction has already converted these streets from mostly four-lane roads to two-lane roads with a median and protected two lanes for designated walking and biking.
“(Spartanburg) really overbuilt road capacity,” Stone said. “They built four-lane roads where they didn’t need four lanes of traffic. That’s why they can take a lane off of union street and one off of Kennedy street because the traffic counts don’t justify that many lanes.”
This extension differs from the existing rail trail in that it exists alongside the roads in Spartanburg rather than being completely separate. With this, they also created a barrier to keep those on the trail safe. These barriers range from just cement to grass, some of which have newly planted trees on them.
This proximity to the road also means that crosswalks from one sidewalk to the other will extend over the rail trail extension.
Additionally, there are two more extensions in the work that will branch from this end of the project. One will connect to the Northside apartments and the small trail behind them; the other will go east to connect with the other trails near Drayton Mills.
Carolyne Shealy ‘25, a cross country athlete at Wofford, frequents the trail for her “easy runs.”
Although she is excited for the development, she is unsure of how much safer it will make her running experience and hopes to see extension toward the Wofford area.
“If they extend it to near Wofford it will be a lot safer to get to the trail,” Shealy said. “I know a lot of the time, big intersections have a lot of cars that don’t always give walkers the right-of-way, so extending the rail trail even further would definitely improve the safety for walkers”
Stone also spoke on the Spartanburg County Organization PAL, Play Advocate Live Well, which seeks to promote physical activity and healthy eating. Working with the City of Spartanburg, PAL has a goal of “building a trails network.”
Stone described that instead of being able to have a large area ready for a trail system Spartanburg and PAL instead have had to go bit by bit to collect enough trails to cobble together a large trail system.
PAL described its goal for Spatanburg’s entire trail system, also known as the Daniel Morgan Trail System, to eventually connect nearly 60 miles worth of biking and walking trails.
