Amenities Designs Presented To ETAB

Hunter Marks of Watermark presented the 100 percent designs for the amenities and their locations for the first six miles of the Ecusta Trail to Brevard’s Ecusta Trail Advisory Board (ETAB) on Wednesday, May 28.

Marks said detailed designs for amenities such as orientation markers, stations, location markers, bike repair, etc. were presented to Henderson County Rail Trail Advisory Committee (RTAC) recently, and that similar plans would be provided for the Brevard section in the future. 

He said if an adjacent property owner in Henderson County has an issue with buffers between their property and the trail, they work with those property owners. 

Marks said there would be two types of fencing along the trail to delineate the trail right-of-way from private property. One type is split-rail while the other is more solid. 

The information on the signs will depend on where people are located on the trail, and the signs at more populous access points will have more information. At the latter, the signs will not only tell people where they are, but also how far it is to certain places, such as the next municipality or commercial areas, etc.

“There’s food here, there’s a bike shop here,” said Marks. “Nothing specific, just icons to tell people kind of where they are and what’s nearby and some mileage information about the trail just to orient them where they are.”

He said information signs also would be placed at areas where there is a historic view or stopping point. For example, Marks said if one is heading west on the trail at Yale Road in Henderson County, there is a straight section where people would be looking directly at Mt. Pisgah. An information sign about Mt. Pisgah could be placed at that location.

Marks said his company is currently designing a template for the signs, but needs to know what information and where that information should be located on the signs. They need to know the phone numbers for emergencies and general trail maintenance, if text or icons should be used, if trail partners should be listed, etc. 

He said once that information is obtained and a template is created, it could be presented to FOET (Friends of Ecusta Trail) for feedback. 

“We can come up with a unified template that everybody likes,” he said. 

ETAB co-chair and Brevard City Council member Aaron Baker asked when Marks needed feedback on the signs from ETAB.

Marks said he would like to have the template ready in four to six weeks. Once the template is approved, then they can move forward determining specific information for each location. 

Since the next meeting of ETAB is June 25, it was decided to share comments amongst ETAB and Marks before the next meeting.

FOET President Mark Tooley said the stations, large, covered areas for trail users, would be located as close as possible to the old train stations along the route. There were train stations at Blantyre, Penrose, Pisgah Forest, Etowah and several other locations.

Marks said the old train station in Etowah is a “perfect” place because it also has room for ample parking.

In a related matter, Brevard City Manager Wilson Hooper said Pisgah Labs had verbally agreed to make some of its property available for parking for trail users. The area could be large enough for nearly two dozen vehicles.

Hooper said all he needs now is a written agreement with Pisgah Labs for the parking area.

John Lanier