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GREENSBORO — After more than a decade of discussion and planning, construction is under way on a $1.2 million underpass beneath Cone Boulevard for hikers and bikers.

The work on the first phase of the Battleground Rail Trail — a block east of Battleground Avenue — will inconvenience motorists for about two months while four lanes of traffic are reduced to one in each direction.

The traffic changes will allow work crews to dig space for and position a prefabricated tunnel 114 feet long, 16 feet wide and about 8 feet high.

City officials realize the quarter-mile work zone between Battleground Avenue and Patriot Court will be a source of delay, but the only other option was completely closing Cone until the underpass is finished, said Tyler Meyer, the Greensboro Department of Transportation’s planning manager.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out this would be better,” Meyer said of keeping the road open. Cone is heavily traveled and has a unique route not easily detoured.

The underpass is the centerpiece of the trail’s first phase, which extends 1.3 miles between Pisgah Church Road and Markland Avenue, just north of Cornwallis Drive.

The deadline for completing the project is January, but city officials believe it could be finished sooner.

The entire segment, including the underpass, will cost $1.8 million — half the $3.58 million city officials initially estimated.
Meyer said that construction and material prices are lower in today’s slowed economy and that planners may have estimated on the high side.

The federal government has agreed to pay more than $970,000 of the tunnel’s cost, Meyer said.

The Lake Brandt Greenway has been open since 1995 from Pisgah Church Road, where the rail trail begins, north to the lake. Plans call for the trail eventually to extend south of Markland Avenue into the center city. It follows abandoned stretches of the old Atlantic & Yadkin Railroad.

Residents and business people near the underpass hope the trail will be good for the neighborhood, though some expressed concern it could become a gathering spot for vagrants.

Others said the trail should boost real estate values in the area by improving access to such popular destinations as Country Park, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park and Lake Brandt Greenway.

“It’s really going to be good for people who want to go up to the park; you don’t have to be in the middle of traffic all the way,” said Traci Bast, a resident of Francisco Place whose town house faces the underpass.

Neighbor Linda Morphis agreed, saying, “I think it’s going to be good for Greensboro.”

Business people in the area said the project adds congestion to an area already difficult to navigate, but it isn’t causing a lot of complaints from customers.

“A lot of people do ask questions,” said Jason Kennedy, manager of the UPS Store at Battleground and Cone. “They just wonder what’s going on.”

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com