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Music.

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Welcome to the Engineering and Public Works Roadshow, coming to you from Winston-Salem

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at the Great Trail State Conference, celebrating the Great Trail State of North Carolina.

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And this week, we're focusing in on an area of infrastructure which is seen

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regularly by people who use it, but don't really think about it on a day-to-day

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basis. That's recreational infrastructure.

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It's trails, greenways, things that we use to get out of our houses,

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especially after COVID. I mean, we're so hemmed in there. But people started appreciating the outdoor

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space, trails, greenways, getting out there, walking, getting healthy, exercising.

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It's the kind of things that really pull communities together.

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And we're looking at a number of projects throughout the state.

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And today we're looking at the Cross Charlotte Trail.

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It is a Kimley Horn project joined by project manager Tori Golicheski.

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There you go. Thank you. Okay. There we go. We got that out of the way.

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So, Tori, let's talk about this project and kind of how did it come to pass

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and how did Kim and Horn get involved and some of the background around that. Okay.

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Well, so the full Cross Charlotte Trail is a partnership between Mecklenburg

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County and the city of Charlotte. And they work together to divide up segments of the Cross Charlotte Trail.

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As a whole, it's 26 miles across Mecklenburg County to Cabarrus County.

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So obviously that's not overly feasible to do that all at once.

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And the county had done a couple of different sections. And so the city kind

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of jumped in and chose a couple of sections that they would participate in.

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So the one we're talking about today right now is the Brandywine Road to Tybola Road.

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So it's a mile and a half section between those two roads.

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And the this section was

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particularly unique and challenging in

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that the county had built the section below

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it and above it they had existing sections

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of trail and then you kind of hit this corridor of dense

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development very active roadways a

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lot of challenges that that came with the corridor that kind of put it on the

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back burner for a little bit and so Kimmelhorn was selected by the city to design

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this this project we started that process in probably 2015 2016 with with planning

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it figuring out where it's going to go because like i said the.

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Dense development a lot of a lot of stuff going on so we were kind of limited

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to the little sugar creek stream corridor to work in and so kind of.

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A lot of challenges that came along with that. And so that's kind of the origin of it. Yeah. Yeah.

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But it seemed like the nice thing is at least the plan was there.

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It seemed like the project, it was one that was, we have to do it.

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It was just a question. It was totally a missing link.

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And when and how is this going to happen? Exactly. I mean, and it goes to the,

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I guess the importance of, yeah, once you actually link everything together,

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now you actually have this functioning kind of ecosystem of- Correct.

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Yeah. Those little segments that are a mile, mile and a half at a time are great.

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And I think some people struggle to see the functionality of them until you're

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able to tie them together and create transportation corridors,

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recreation corridors, that type of thing. I mean, from the community impact, you know, how did this help connect,

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you know, different areas of, you know, of Metro County together so that it was unified?

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So you're no longer separating communities out that could be disadvantaged and what have you.

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Definitely, definitely. And as we all know, there's physical barriers that come,

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the stream, roadways, et cetera.

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So the county had built a lot of Little Sugar Creek below in this particular section.

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So you're bringing in all those communities from either side of the creek because

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you've got pedestrian bridges that cross the creek. And that's a physical barrier

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from a roadway standpoint. So you're bringing those communities together across the creek and you're bringing

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the south to the north and et cetera, as well as commercial development, too.

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So kind of one of the terminuses of the project is a pretty big shopping center.

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So you're bringing people to that and and then the neighborhoods that come down. Yeah.

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So let's talk about, I guess, a little bit about how you found yourself on the project.

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Did you think that you'd be, is this an area of engineering or an area that

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you kind of set out to do more of the recreational or trail Greenway side?

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Or what was your journey into that? That's a great question.

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So I started with Kimley Horn about the time we started this project.

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So I've kind of, I've grown up with it and I've seen all sides of it.

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And I actually, I was not overly sure what type of engineering I wanted to do.

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Obviously, civil engineering, but that means a lot of different things.

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So when I first started, I kind of got involved in a couple different areas.

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I was working on bigger transit projects. And at that point, in that first year of figuring that out, I kind of said,

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you know, I really want to do something that impacts where I live.

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And not that transit doesn't do that. That's super important.

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But for me, the projects throughout the country, the bigger jumbo projects were

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not really speaking to me as much as the little stuff that was going to impact

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the community that I live in. So with starting the Cross Valley Trail Project, I kind of jumped in on that

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and said, hey, I really want to want to work on this, had that opportunity. and.

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Grew up with it as it progressed in design and through construction.

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So I was able to kind of latch onto it.

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And it's honestly inspired a lot of what I do now because most of the work that

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I do is bicycle pedestrian infrastructure within the city of Charlotte,

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Mecklenburg County, and all of North Carolina. Which is, I mean, it's essential work. I mean, without these pieces of infrastructure,

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I mean, the cities don't work. I mean, really, you can't drive everywhere. or we don't want to have everybody on cars. Yes.

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And give people another option. Exactly. And even if you have transit,

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the transit has a terminus. After that terminus, what happens, right? You need connectivity. Exactly.

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I mean, it's also, I think it's a good example of how, to your point,

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smaller projects have outsized impact.

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I know, you know, redesigning an airport is one of the things we're going to

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make a project and look how amazing it is, right? But a mile of greenway can

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transform people's lives. Exactly. And that's what's very impressive. And this project in particular is

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all about connectivity, right? You have that missing link and that mile and a half that we filled in unlocked

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a ton of doors for communities. And you have people using it that are down in the creek, on the trail.

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Like, I didn't know this creek existed.

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And now I'm here. and there's a road above me and it's it's kind of cool to

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see people experience their community in that way and feel like i had a part

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in it exactly yeah yeah that's that's really something i mean i think it goes

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to you know something that we try to do with the roadshow is is talk to,

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the potential engineer out there you know could be could be a high school junior

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high school kid who's like you know i don't know what to do but i like being outside i like.

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Looking around and saying, oh, you know, how, how, how did this building happen?

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How did this road happen? You know, from your perspective, coming into, you know, Emily Horn on at the

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projects, practically, it's actually kind of grown up through,

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you know, what would you tell somebody out there who is thinking about engineering,

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but just isn't sure whether it's for them or not?

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Yeah, I would, I would definitely encourage younger folks to talk to people

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and figure out what engineers actually do.

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I think, I mean, I was one of these people in high school where people were

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telling me to do engineering because I was good at math. And engineering is such a broad term that it's hard for someone of that age

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to understand what your day-to-day is going to look like or what the projects

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even are that you're going to do. So to kind of get involved in the community and

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talk to people that are actively doing projects and figure out

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what their day-to-day is and where you would fit

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in that process because there's there's so many different sides to it

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and there's public sector infrastructure which is

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obviously super impactful to communities but then there's private sector

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stuff that you can also get involved with or I

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mean we've got planners and people will fit all

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different pieces of the puzzle and without having those

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conversations understanding what people are doing then you're

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not going to know where you best fit in that puzzle

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and having an idea of what people do because that

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I could tell you how many people said oh you should

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be an engineer you're good at math and like so I don't

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know so yeah having a real

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world understanding because I I don't even think I fully understood what civil

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engineers do and particularly in the consulting world how they interact with

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municipalities and various other types of clients so getting a better understanding

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of that from from people actually do it, getting internships,

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figuring out how you can get involved, and even going to conferences or anything

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like that that gives you a little perspective. Because, I mean, to your point, it's, yeah, you have the design side.

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Of course, you do have the math and science to the end. The direct STEM part of it.

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But there's a lot to get to that point. Yeah. A lot of community involvement.

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It's talking to people, figuring out what the challenges are. And it's problem solving, right? Right. It's, you know, how do we improve?

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It's working with people. It's, you know, getting to know people and solving different problems, being creative.

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It's not just the numbers and the math that make it work. Absolutely.

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So if you're out there, if you're out there, it's just, it's not just math.

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It's also a lot of people work. It's a lot of creativity.

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So Tori, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you so much.

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Yeah. It's great to put a spotlight on all these projects because they do have,

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you can have a project that might be a mile long, but then that impact was going

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to be significant for people now and into the future.

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Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Having that, having that ability to put your fingerprint

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on it, it must be, it's, it's Yeah. It's very cool. Awesome. Very cool. I love it.

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Fantastic. Well, Tori, thanks again. And this has been the Engineering and Public Works Roadshow.

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It's a combined effort by the American Council of Engineering,

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Comprehensive American Public Works Association, and our friends at the American

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Society of Civil Engineers. And we'll see you next time.

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Music.