The Mill Line walking/biking trail should be finished by Feb. 1, 2024, according to Dalton City Administrator Andrew Parker.
Parker updated City Council members on the project during a recent meeting of the Dalton Finance Committee. The committee is composed of the council members.
“The soil cement has been completed on that the last few weeks,” he said.
Soil cement is a compacted mix of soil and cement that is used as a base for paving.
“The trail lighting conduit has been installed, and we are working with Dalton Utilities to actually install the trail lights,” he said. “Paving is scheduled to begin the first week of December.”
Parker said the expected completion date when the project began earlier this year was in December.
“But we had a few change orders and some delays caused by issues with the subgrade that caused us to add the soil cement,” he said.
In October the council approved a change order that called for the contractor (Northwest Georgia Paving of Calhoun) to pave a 10-feet wide trail instead of an eight-feet wide trail as called for in the original plans. The city was able to do that because the contractor found it would be able to avoid environmentally sensitive areas. If the trail had gone through such areas, it would have required the construction of boardwalks over those areas.
The trail will be about 1.1 miles from the Eagle Walk trail to the trail around Haig Mill Lake Park. There will also be a half-mile spur to Mallard Road.
The Eagle Walk at Mill Creek, a half-mile walking and biking trail just off Chattanooga Avenue that runs parallel to Mill Creek, was constructed as an Eagle Scout project about nine years ago.
Dalton businessman Paul Belk and his partner, the late Horace Sewell, donated much of the land for the riverwalk.
The city has received a $25,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia to pay for benches and signs.