Move trails project now

If scientists – some of them – are to be believed, it took man 3.6 million years to advance from hirsute primate crawling about on hands and feet to walking sans the hands. It is doubtful that the city’s greenway project will take quite that long to finish. But those thinking of holding breath to pass the time between now and the project’s completion would be advised to refrain. Lawyers work and the world waits.

For roughly a decade, Waynesboro officials have planned to open what they call a Greenway Trail System – a network of trails and bicycle and pedestrian paths – along the South River. This would not figure to entail the Darwinian complexity of men springing from apes, but somebody evidently neglected to explain as much to Invista and DuPont, the two entities associated now and before with the fibers plant on the South’s banks. Those companies’ imprimaturs are required before the greenway project can proceed, which means men might return to all fours before the first bicyclist goes pedaling along the river.

Three months ago, city officials announced they had signed off on two deeds of easement needed for work to begin. That final step, though, is one across a seeming chasm. Invista and DuPont must also sign the easements. The latter term indicates nothing about the ease of the process nor does it hint at the difficulty of putting ink to paper on a project carrying the ostensibly innocent implications of people strolling the riverside.

City Manager Mike Hamp explains, somewhat: “We were able, we believe, to negotiate acceptable easement language,” he said. “And we’ve sent that off to them to be signed, and we’ve not gotten signed easements back. That’s in transit.”

Invista spokeswoman Erica Taylor explains, less so. “We’ve reached an agreement, and are in the execution process of signing the agreement.” Oh. So when might this “execution process” be completed? Well, Taylor doesn’t exactly know.

Reviewing for the sheer, mind-numbing joy of it, the city has been nibbling away at the greenway project since the late 1990s. Since then, Apple has developed and produced the iPhone, U.S. troops have invaded and surged to near victory in Iraq, almost three-dozen space shuttles have been launched and America has elected its first black president. One would think this fair city could have managed to build a few bike trails in that time.

So whom to blame? Does it matter? With the finish line so near after 10 years of running at slow crawl, it is long past time to sign dotted lines. Let the city begin the “execution process” of digging shovels into dirt. We would like for the trails to gain use before we all return to the dust from whence we came.