Are you east Cobbers tired of sitting in traffic trying to make your way through the bottlenecks over the Chattahoochee River? Well, good news - federal and local authorities are working to build another bridge across the river.

Oops - bad news! That expensive bridge would be strictly for pedestrians and bicyclers, not cars and trucks. Sorry!

The National Park Service has proposed a $1.2 million pedestrian or pedestrian/mixed-use bridge over the river just below Morgan Falls Dam.

The NPS is proposing to foot $600,000 of the bridge's cost. Cobb and Fulton would split the remainder. (Those figures are nearly a decade old, by the way. The bridge would no doubt cost a good bit more now.)

The bridge would link the new Sandy Springs Park on the Fulton side with Cobb's new Hyde Farm Park on our side.

The Sandy Springs Park boasts a parking lot, dog park, pavilion and a picturesque old chimney but will have virtually nothing in the way of trails. The Cobb end of the bridge would be sited on part of the Hyde property that now is included in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, thereby allowing Sandy Springs residents easy access to the Cobb-side amenities.

The 45.5-acre Cobb park, which abuts the CRNRA and is composed of the rest of the original Hyde farmstead, is home to a pair of 1840s-vintage log cabins and was acquired with funds from the $40 million parks bond approved by Cobb taxpayers in 2006. It is in the process of being developed as a county park.

The Hyde Farm Park will be unlike any other in the area when it opens, featuring cultivated farm fields, a rare combination of historic cabins and barns, towering old-growth trees, several small streams, hiking/walking paths and a rich variety of flora and fauna.

However, opposition to the proposed bridge is growing on the Cobb side of the river and was much in evidence at last week's meeting of the East Cobb Civic Association. Bridge foes argue the span is not needed and would primarily serve mountain bikers - and Fulton's mountain bikers at that.

They also oppose the NPS proposal for an artificial hard surfaced- walking/bicycle trail along the riverbank through the old Hyde acreage. Mountain bikers speeding past families with strollers on the shared trail would make for a bad and potentially dangerous mix, they plausibly argue. Moreover, the proposed trail along the riverbank is just the camel's nose in the tent, they fear, as mountain bike advocates also are hoping to establish trails through the woods up and down the steep bluffs on the CRNRA part of the Hyde property overlooking the river valley. Such trails would significantly increase erosion into the river, they say. It's worth noting that Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park banned mountain bikes in the early 1990s because of the severe erosion problems the bikes were causing, as well as the conflicts with other trail users.

Incidentally, bridge opponents say that despite the introduction of mountain bikers to Hyde Farm, there are no plans or funds for increased NPS patrols or security to make sure bikers stay where they're supposed to.

They also point out that the NPS proposal makes no mention of the costs of upkeep, repair and security for the bridge, or whether those would be borne by the park service or local jurisdictions.

Bridge opponents also question the need for it, noting that Fulton bikers will soon be able to access Cobb's existing bike trail network (which does not cross the Hyde property) via bike lanes on the Highway 9 (Roswell Road) Bridge over the river, the proposed multi-use trail along Lower Roswell Road and bike/pedestrian lanes planned for the Johnson Ferry Road Bridge. The Johnson Ferry bike and pedestrian bridge is a scant 1.8 miles downstream from the proposed recreational bridge at Hyde Farm. Indeed, there already are parking lots at every unit of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, and there will be parking at Cobb's Hyde Farm Park as well.

So why all the talk of needing a foot/bike bridge? And why are Cobb officials giving any thought at all to sinking hundreds of thousands of tax dollars into an unneeded bridge that mostly benefits Fulton County when our county government is facing the direst budget year since the Great Depression, with layoffs, furloughs and tax hikes still a possibility?

At a time when governments at all levels are strapped for money to address transportation issues, it makes no sense to spend so much to build a bridge that will serve so few - while simultaneously putting at risk what makes the Hyde Farm area so special in the first place.

Joe Kirby is Editorial Page Editor of the Marietta Daily Journal and co-author of the new "Then & Now: Marietta Revisited."