City, consultants present preferred route for North Main connector to Swamp Rabbit Trail

Consultants for Greenville City presented an update on a proposed North Main connector to the Swamp Rabbit Trail during the council work session, saying community input and technical scoring have narrowed a set of route alternatives and design approaches.

Jean Crowder, principal with Alta Planning and director of planning for the firm's East Coast offices, said the project’s “purpose of this is to connect the North Main community with the Swamp Rabbit Trail” and that the effort is currently in a feasibility phase that will be followed by engineering once a preferred routing is selected. Crowder said the study has split the work into a northern, middle and southern section and that the team will present a recommended preferred routing at the next community open house.

The consultants told council they had studied multiple route alternatives and design options. They said the routing now favored by the public and by their technical scoring links the rail corridor and North Main to Gallivan Street (also spelled in public materials as Gallivan/Galavan in early notes) and continues to the community area near Wade Hampton Boulevard. The team identified two northern-route alternatives (along Graves Drive or Renwick Drive), multiple middle-section alternatives including routing along North Main Street or via Rutherford Road and Summit Drive, and two southern options to reach Wade Hampton Boulevard. The middle section design options for North Main were narrowed to four cross-section concepts: North Main Greenway, the Strollway, Neighborhood Promenade and North Main Side Path. Each uses public roadway right-of-way in varying ways to trade space between travel lanes, medians, parking and a separated greenway or side path.

Consultants told the council that the preferred overall route at this point pairs Gallivan (3a) and a southern option (4a) and that those alternatives scored high in performance while showing relatively lower anticipated costs. Crowder said the team used seven evaluation criteria, including constructability, public and stakeholder support and cost, to score alternatives and that the resulting technical analysis aligned with public input.

Caitlin Owens of the city’s project management office said the study has included technical committee meetings and two public open houses and that roughly 816 community members have participated in virtual and in-person engagement to date. Owens said the team still plans “one more check-in with the public” and described a next public open house and a targeted survey for residents along the proposed route, currently aiming for early December and saying council and the public will be notified when the date is finalized.

Council members asked detailed questions about property impacts, on-street parking and how driveway crossings would be treated where a greenway meets private property. Consultants noted those are design-level decisions that will be resolved during engineering and emphasized they had only presented concept-level cross sections at this stage. The team repeatedly stressed that final routing and design will require further coordination with adjacent landowners where the corridor intersects private property and that specific treatments (for example whether crosswalk areas are painted green or use other materials) are best-practice decisions to improve visibility and safety.

No formal action or vote was taken during the work session. Staff said they will return with a final report summarizing community input and the technical evaluation and will schedule the next public meeting before the end of the year.