Camden County gets $19M toward building 34-mile trail starting at Ben Franklin Bridge

Camden County’s plan to build its 34-mile Link Trail the length of the county from the Ben Franklin Bridge to Winslow Township just got a big boost from the federal government: $19 million.

Ultimately, the foot and bike trail would connect Philadelphia to Cape May County and the even larger Circuit Trails Network. The Camden city segment of the Link Trail would have five pedestrian bridges along the way.

The money comes from the Department of Transportation’s RAISE program and will go toward building much of the first six-mile segment of the Link Trail from Camden city to the Cooper River in Pennsauken, complete with a swing bridge that would allow runners, walkers and cyclists to pass.

That bridge would allow users to cross underneath the Ben Franklin Bridge near Rutgers without worrying about motor vehicle traffic. It would open for maintenance access by the Delaware River Port Authority.

“It’s a game changer,” said Jeffrey Nash, a Camden County commissioner and liaison to the county parks department. “It helps us build a significant part of the trail. With the money, we’re able to expedite construction.”

The county applied for the same grant last year but was denied. So officials say it was a relief to learn their application was successful this year. Nash said that U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, a Democrat who represents the city and a swath of South Jersey, advocated for the grant.

Nash said the county will put in an additional $6 million, bringing money available for that first section of trail to $25 million.

The full trail would cross through 17 municipalities from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Camden to the Gloucester County line in lower Winslow Township. It will transverse urban, suburban, and rural areas, connecting some municipal and county parks, as well as several downtown business districts. Ultimately, the trail would dovetail into Gloucester County, then join existing and planned trail systems for Atlantic and Cape May Counties, eventually ending in Cape May.

The trail would also connect with the developing 850-mile Circuit Trails network with access to nine counties in the Philadelphia region.

Sarah Clark Stuart, chair of the Circuit Trails Coalition, called the grant “big news for our region” because it will help “provide equitable access to trails, walking and biking across Southern Jersey, and help us achieve our short-term goal of completing 500 miles of Circuit Trails by 2025.”

To date, Camden County has received $31.5 million in grants for the Link Trail. The original projected cost of the trail was $52 million, but Nash said it would likely exceed that. There is no timeframe for completion.

A lot of current work is focused on obtaining rights of way and permissions. For example, the county needs to acquire easements on 11 miles from Conrail for sections that would parallel existing train tracks. And it needs permission from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for a section intended to run through the Winslow Wildlife Management Area.

Officials have hosted 100 public meetings so far on the trail.

“The project has been engineered,” Nash said. “That is half the game.”

Indeed, the design and engineering alone for the five bridges needed to get trail users from the Ben Franklin through Camden is extensive. They’ll be part of a trail that meanders along the Camden waterfront through North Camden, then across the Admiral Wilson Boulevard and Cooper River.

Jack Sworaski, the county’s project manager for the Link Trail, said officials stressed on the application for the grant that the trail would reconnect Camden neighborhoods that were split from each other after highway construction in the 1950s and ‘60s. Residents from North Camden would be able walk to the Parkside section or downtown Camden, for example, without worrying about major traffic.

“It’s certainly huge for the city,” Sworaski said of the grant.