This is certainly not the first time the neighborhoods along the Collier Road and Northside Drive corridors have been polled on the feelings about a PATH Foundation-type trail coming through their neighborhoods.
In 2001, PATH put in a short one-block trail segment from behind the homes that face Peachtree Battle Avenue to the intersection of Sagamore and Northside Drive. The way it was bulldozed through and the way it was constructed caused a series of public committee meetings and forums, including the many neighborhoods in the area, that stretched over almost two years a few years ago.
Attorney John Sacha, who’s house backs up to that initial segment of PATH along Northside Drive at Peachtree Battle Avenue, has had his greatest fears from the trail realized. In July of 2004, as he and his wife were preparing for a trip to Europe, the back door of his home was kicked in and robbers took some $50,000 worth of jewelry, cameras and other items from his house and apparently fled by way of the PATH, the way they apparently entered his property.
At that time that initial segment was built, PATH had plans to continue that trail south toward Tanyard Creek Park and through the park to connect to a PATH trail that the residents of Ardmore had agreed to as part of a purchase of several acres of urban forest abutting the neighborhood.
PATH’s plan for the trail was to run it through the Bobby Jones Golf Course part of Memorial Park, and down Tanyard Creek, under Collier Road (probably through a giant culvert) and through the green pasture-like area of Tanyard Creek Park to the CSX railroad trestle, where it would link up with the Ardmore Park Path.