COBB COUNTY - Dirt is moving on the roughly 7-mile-long Noonday Creek Trail, which will connect pedestrians and cyclists from the Town Center mall area to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

The project is being constructed in five phases. The paved trail will be 8 to 10 feet wide and have a dotted line to separate pedestrians and cyclists.

The project began about a year ago, when the Town Center Community Improvement District paid approximately $1 million for Phase 2B. This portion of the trail is 2.3 miles and runs from Noonday Creek at Highway 41 up to Barrett Lakes Boulevard.

Cobb County engineer Jane Stricklin, the project's manager, said Phase 2B is expected to be completed by the end of April. It was temporarily delayed when its first contractor went bankrupt, she said. Stricklin said Phase 2B will not have a parking lot, but the county is working with other retailers for potential parking agreements once the 2C portion that will exist around Town Center at Cobb mall begins construction a year from now.

Stricklin said Phase 2B began before the others because the county did not have to wait on state or local funding to come through since the Town Center CID provided full funding for that portion. Stricklin also said Phase 2B was the easiest to construct and its plans were further along than the others, some of which contain bridges and busy intersections.

The next phase of the trail, Phase 1B, was let on today and is expected to be completed by the end of July. Cobb Department of Transportation Director Faye DiMassimo said this portion will connect the existing multi-use trail that runs along Kennesaw Avenue into the park. The county will fund $600,000 of the $1.3 million phase through Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue, while the National Park Service will fund $600,000 and the Cobb County Water System will fund about $150,000, DiMassimo said. This mile-long phase will run along Old 41 Highway beginning at Stilesboro Road and ending at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park boundary. The trial will cross over the Old 41 bridge, which is expected to be completed by the end of May.

A 279-space parking lot will be built during the construction of Phase 1B for trail and park visitors at the corner of Stilesboro Road and Old 41, Stricklin said.

Stricklin said the county will bid out Phase 2A at the end of April, with a June start expected. Phase 2A will be about 0.3 miles long and will run from Barrett Parkway to Noonday Creek, where it will connect to Phase 2B. Stricklin said the Georgia Department of Transportation is funding $500,000 for Phase 2A.

The largest portion of the Noonday Creek Trail, Phase 2C, is expected to start in spring 2011, Stricklin said, and will connect to Phase 2B at Barrett Lakes Boulevard and run 2.6 miles to its end at Bells Ferry Road. Phase 2C will be funded by a $3.28 million Living Centers Initiative grant from the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Phase 1B, which will connect to Phase 1A at the Kennesaw Mountain Park boundary, will be the last of the five phases to be constructed as Stricklin said the county will be receiving $1 million from GDOT to fund the project, and that the funding will take longer to get than others. The 1-mile portion is expected to begin in fall 2011. It will run along Old 41 to Barrett Parkway, where it will connect to the West Cobb Trail. Stricklin said the West Cobb Trail portion that will run along Barrett Parkway and connect Phase 1B to Phase 2A is a separate project, but the county will advertise for its construction in December. This portion will be 0.7 miles.

"The whole idea of the project is to link residential areas with commercial and industrial areas, and to make these areas much more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. Right now, they're pretty limited in these areas," Stricklin said.