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| | Wednesday, November 25, 2020
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Bike trail announcement
Outgoing US Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee will be in Cocke County on Monday for a “significant announcement” regarding the mountain bike trails project along the undeveloped section of the Foothills Parkway in the county. The event is planned for 9:30am at the I-40 Tennessee Welcome Center at mile marker 446 in Hartford. In May, Alexander announced a $500,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) which will be used to design mountain bike and hiking trails along the Foothills Parkway to increase tourism and economic development opportunities in the area. Cocke County is one of Tennessee’s most economically distressed counties in the ARC region, and the planned mountain bike and hiking trails will bring more visitors, who come to the Smokies each year, to Cocke County. That will increase tourism and economic development opportunities in the county. "For the past several years, I have been working with Governor Lee, Senator Blackburn, the Conservation Fund, Cocke and Sevier county officials, state representatives and officials from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee National Forest to develop mountain bike and hiking trails along the undeveloped section of the Foothills Parkway in Cocke County," Alexander said at the time. "We heard some really good ideas in our roundtables, and thanks to this funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission, those ideas are going to become a reality." Linda Lewanski, Tourism Director for the Cocke County Partnership, said the grant will be used for market analysis, a concept design, environmental assessment, community input and training for those who do the upkeep of the trails after they are developed. "We are so excited and thankful for this grant. It is for 50 to 75 miles for hiking and biking, along the Foothills Parkway, down into the Mill Creek area of the Cherokee National Forest. We are thankful for all of the partners in the project, and to Senator Alexander for his vision." Lewanski said she does not have a timeline for the actual construction of the trails, "but I think we have a year in all these studies and then, of course, we will apply again for the financing needed for the construction phase." Later Cocke County Partnership President Lucus Graham later announced that the Appalachian Regional Commission will provide additional money in the new budget toward actual construction of the bike trails. He also said there has been international interest in bidding on the project to develop the bicycle trails concept design.
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