Chattanooga’s dedicated greenway builders and advocates have remained energized, even in a sour economy, by a compelling vision of a greenway network that eventually will branch outward from the spine of the Riverwalk to key points throughout the community. Their continuing efforts toward that goal will pay off again today with another milestone: The official opening of a unique four-mile segment of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway.
Nestled along an almost hidden treasure of the city, this section of what’s commonly referred to as the South Chick Greenway is a gem. Its uniqueness owes to the enchanting, elevated boardwalk built above marshy lowlands areas that meanders along the tree-lined creek. Construction of the extensive sturdy boardwalk may make it the most expensive leg of the greenway. If so, it is well worth the effort. The board walk portions provide great beauty and cap the most difficult work toward completion of the entire 14-mile greenway.
That work should be completed in the next few years. It needs the addition of just three more land easements along the creek and another focused fund-raising effort to finance the two remaining sections. One is another four mile section of hard-surface track to connect the newest segment with the Brainerd Levee, which now terminates at Shallowford Road. The other, about a mile long, will carry the greenway from the new leg the rest of the way to its junction with the Riverwalk.
When the final work is done, the long South Chick greenway will stretch from the Tennessee Riverwalk near Amnicola Highway all the way to East Ridge’s Camp Jordan, near the Georgia line.
The new section of the South Chick greenway is a special place. Save the portion needed to skirt the Waterhaven subdivision near the Hawthorne Street trailhead off Riverside Drive, it travels mainly through a quiet patch of low-lying rural land. Much of this section was farmland, protected as a floodplain, and separated from the creek by a thin curtain of woods along its banks.