For those of you who know everything there is to know about the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail and for those of you who still may be wondering why the heck everything in Greenville is named after a Swamp Rabbit, we’ve got some good news.

Alright, SRT aficionados + Hincapie wannabes. You first. On Sept. 24 from 5:30-6:30 p.m., the City of Greenville is hosting a virtual Open House to present a draft of the Master Plan for the planned Swamp Rabbit Trail extension.

Planned Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail extension | Map via the City of Greenville

To everyone else who has no idea what we’re talking about, keep reading.👇

The Swamp Rabbit Trail extension refers to a new 4.5 mile stretch of trail from Cleveland Park to CU-ICAR. To really get a look at what we’re talking about, click here. Zoom in on this map around downtown, then click “Maps” in the top left, followed by “Layers,” then “Map Layers.” Scroll down to “Places of Interest” + make sure you’ve got “PRISMA Health Swamp Rabbit Trail” and “Proposed PRISMA Health Swamp Rabbit Trail” selected. We promise – all that clicking is worth it, and be sure to bookmark this map for future use, because it’s pretty handy.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s discuss a few details.

The physical trail itself is being constructed by Greenville County (like many other portions of the SRT) and is estimated to be complete in Dec. 2022. And yes, all 4.5 miles will open at one time (not bit by bit).

As this entire stretch of the trail is within city limits, the upcoming meeting is to discuss the study area (land within the dotted lines on the above map) with one of the project consultants, Stantec. The City is focused on improving trail access for every surrounding neighborhood, preserving housing + economic diversity, improving Laurens Road streetscape, enhancing priority crosswalks, and more. “[The draft master] plan sets forth a series of public investments, development policies, and design guidelines to guide the growth and change of this corridor.”

This new portion will have five bridges. Three of these bridges (over Laurens Road, Verdae, and Haywood Road) will be new with two others (over Woodruff Road and Laurel Creek) being retrofitted. The bridges are being designed to handle an additional 10% dead load to display public artwork.

Be sure to follow Swamp Rabbit Trail’s Facebook page or sign up to get text alerts about this project and others in the future, and get to reviewing that Master Plan before next Thursday (it’s 100+ pages long).