The Swamp Rabbit Trail's Next Mile Isn't Going Where Everyone Expected

Brann Fowler and his family live on Gallivan Street, a few blocks off North Main. For the better part of a year, they assumed the Swamp Rabbit Trail was finally coming to their front door. City planners had picked a preferred route, more than 860 residents had weighed in, and the path was set to run right past their house on its way to The Community Tap. Then, earlier this year, the city walked away from the whole plan. Fowler put it simply: "We're disappointed. We wish it was coming."

Here's the part that catches longtime trail users off guard: while the most-requested extension in Greenville stalled out after seven years of asking, two other stretches that nobody had been publicly clamoring for started moving. One got a $20 million federal grant. The other got announced almost out of nowhere during the city's State of the City address in June. If you use the Swamp Rabbit Trail on a normal week, whether for a commute, a run, or a slow loop with the dog, the order these things are actually happening in tells you more about how Greenville expands this trail than any map ever will.

The Route Everyone Thought Was Already Decided

The North Main connector had been on the table for years. City Council member John DeWorken, who represents the area, put the timeline in plain terms: "I've heard from North Main neighbors for seven years now wanting a connection to the Swamp Rabbit Trail." Last October, after months of study, consultants recommended a route running down North Main Street and turning east on Gallivan Street toward The Community Tap, connecting a neighborhood of more than 5,000 residents to the rest of the trail network.

Then the objections started. Not from everyone. Some residents wanted it badly. But others raised concerns about narrower streets, reduced parking, driveway access, and trash pickup along a route that would have run directly through their yards. Earlier this year, the city had ended the plan entirely. Bennett Meares, who bikes and skates up North Main to reach Other Lands regularly, called the current road "one of the scarier routes that I've taken, just because the road design isn't great." That road is still what North Main residents are stuck with. For now, anyone in that neighborhood still reaches the trail the same way they always have, down Main Street to Falls Park, or across Rutherford Road and Pete Hollis Boulevard to the section near the Amtrak station.

Meanwhile, Money Landed Somewhere Nobody Was Fighting Over

At almost the same time North Main was falling apart, a different extension was quietly getting funded. In February, Greenville County Administrator Joe Kernell told the county council that the county had received a fully executed $20.3 million federal RAISE grant, no local match required, to build a new connector through the Sans Souci neighborhood. The planned route branches off near West Blue Ridge Drive, follows Langston Creek rather than any street, and ends at Poinsett Highway, cutting through the 240 acre redevelopment of the former Union Bleachery and Cone Mills site rather than anyone's front yard.

Here's the catch, and it's worth knowing before you get too excited about a construction timeline. Funded doesn't mean fast. The county still has to complete environmental assessments, topographic surveys, and preliminary engineering before a final design is locked in, and Greenville Journal's reporting on that same February council meeting noted construction is only tentatively expected to begin in 2030 or 2031. The money is real. The shovels are years out.

Then a Brand New Idea Skipped Past Both of Them

In late June, at the city's annual State of the City address, City Manager Shannon Lavrin announced something almost nobody had been asking about publicly: a proposed extension connecting Unity Park to the Village of West Greenville, following an old rail line from Willard Street to the Lois Avenue underpass. According to local rail historian Craig Myers, that same corridor once carried Ringling Bros. Circus equipment into the city. Now it might carry cyclists instead.

Katie Skoloff, who leads the Village Business Association, called it a potential "huge win" for newer businesses in the area still working to build visibility. The city has been direct that this is still just a proposal, early enough that a feasibility study hasn't even started yet. But unlike North Main, nobody has to give up a foot of yard for it to happen.

What Actually Separates the Projects That Move

Lay all three side by side and a pattern shows up fast.

The two projects still alive both follow ground that isn't anyone's front lawn: a creek bed and an old rail bed. The one that died required cutting a new path down streets where people already park, garden, and walk their trash cans to the curb. Seven years of requests didn't save it. A federal grant and a fresh proposal didn't need that kind of local buy-in to survive their first hurdles, because nobody along those routes had a driveway at stake.

That doesn't mean routes on old rail beds are guaranteed. The Village extension is still just an idea the city can study and drop. But if you're trying to guess what Greenville actually builds next, the presence or absence of private frontage along the route is doing more predictive work than resident enthusiasm ever has.

What This Means If You're Actually Out There Riding It

If you live near Sans Souci, don't expect detours or construction cones anytime soon. The environmental and engineering work alone will likely take years before anyone breaks ground.

If you're in West Greenville or spend time around the Village, keep an eye out for public feasibility meetings over the next several months. That's the first real signal of whether this idea has legs.

If you're in North Main, the current access points aren't changing. Main Street to Falls Park, or Rutherford Road and Pete Hollis Boulevard to the Amtrak station stretch, remain the routes in and out.

None of this is small stuff to the people who actually use this trail daily. More than 2.3 million people rode or walked the Swamp Rabbit Trail in 2024, according to city figures reported by Greenville Journal, which is part of why every proposed mile draws this much attention in the first place. The trail isn't short on demand. What it's short on, at least along certain streets, is agreement about where a shared path is worth the tradeoff.

If you're weighing what any of this means for a specific block, a specific commute, or a home near one of these corridors, that's the kind of hyperlocal question Kiersten Bell + Co answers every day. Let's Connect if you want to talk through what's actually happening on the ground in your part of Greenville.