The next new pavement on Woodstock's trail network probably won't be the long Cobb County extension or the big new park on Trickum Road. It will be two short connections that the City Council paid for at its Oct. 12 meeting. Together they cost $509,550, and both went to the same contractor, DAF Concrete Inc. Woodstock Post reported that each job has 90 days to finish once the city issues a notice to proceed.
The bigger projects have a record of slipping dates. The two small links have a contract and a finish window instead. That gap tells you a lot about which trail changes you'll actually walk on first.
The spine you can walk today starts at two front doors
Everything new connects to what's already there, so here's the current layout. The Noonday Creek Trail is the main paved spine of the city's Greenprints Trail System. It runs from downtown toward Highway 92 and crosses Noonday Creek on a bridge to reach Woofstock Park. According to the Woodstock Post trail guide, updated Oct. 6, 2026, the trail has two named trailheads:
- Market Street, downtown. Park free in the City Center East deck, which has more than 600 spaces, and walk to the start. The city's 2024 announcement put this trailhead near Reformation Brewery and Elm Street Green.
- Woofstock Park, 150 Dupree Road. The guide calls this the best single trailhead, because two paved trails start there and the off-leash dog park is right beside them.
The second trail from Woofstock Park is Towne Lake Pass. It runs 1.94 miles along the Noonday Creek corridor and passes under I-575. Put it together with the Noonday Creek Trail and you can walk from Towne Lake to downtown.
That two-trailhead layout is why the Oct. 12 contracts matter. Both new links make it easier to reach trails that already exist.
What the council bought on Oct. 12
Both trail contracts passed as part of a consent agenda, which the council approves in a single vote. Woodstock Post reported the motion carried 6-0, citing the city's meeting video.
Project | What gets built | Contract | Bids received |
|---|---|---|---|
Noonday Creek Trail Connection at Dupree Road | 10-foot trail linking Dupree Road to the Noonday Creek Trail | $154,620 | 9 |
Rope Mill Road Trail Connection | 8-foot trail, drainage and a traffic-calming island, from Inwood Walk North to across from Camelia Place | $354,930 | 12 |
Dupree Road is the smaller job, and it's on the same road as the Woofstock Park trailhead. According to the bid document, the work includes clearing a property and removing driveways along the route. Bids ran from DAF's winning number up to $446,175.
Rope Mill Road costs more than twice as much because it's more than a trail. The city's bid document also lists road widening, curb and gutter, storm drains, rebuilt driveways and new striping. If you drive Rope Mill Road, plan on lane work while it's built.
What hasn't been announced is a start date. The 90-day clock begins only when the city issues its notice to proceed, and Woodstock Post's road construction and closures page is where the paper says it will post closures once the city announces them.
The Cobb extension shows how long pieces drift
The opposite case is the southern extension of the Noonday Creek Trail. It's about 1.5 miles of trail from the existing path near downtown to Cobb County's park on Hawkins Store Road. The city's 2024 announcement called the endpoint Noonday Creek Park, and Cobb County's park listing calls it Noonday Park, at 489 Hawkins Store Road in Kennesaw. Officials from the city and from Cherokee and Cobb counties broke ground in December 2023.
The target date has moved three times:
- August 2024: The city's announcement expected it to open "around this time next year."
- June 2025: WSB-TV reported that a city official expected completion in spring 2026.
- March 2026: A travel feature put the opening in fall 2026.
WSB-TV's report gave the reason as weather. The site is low-lying, so crews lose work time when it rains, and the ground stays hard to work for a while after the rain stops.
As of late October, the city still lists the extension among its current parks and trails projects on its capital projects page, with no completion date. The Oct. 6 trail guide mentions the groundbreaking but gives no opening date. Until the city announces a ribbon cutting, plan your walks as if the trail still ends where it does today.
A 10-foot connector on one road has a price, a contractor and a fixed window. A creekside trail between two counties depends on how wet the season is.
Little River Park is visibly closer, and still a spring project
Little River Park on Trickum Road sits between the two kinds of project. At 110 acres it will be the city's largest park. The city's project page lists it as "Under Construction" with "Estimated Completion Spring 2027." The plan includes about 1.75 miles of trail along the river, pedestrian bridges, access to the pond, and a trailhead in the Woodlands area with restrooms and parking.
The progress logs are more concrete than most:
- The Woodlands pedestrian bridge was delivered on Jan. 15, 2026, and the February and March updates show work on the bridge deck and the boardwalk approach.
- In the September 2026 update, crews poured trail connections from the boardwalk to the upper Trickum parking lot and from the boardwalk to the pond. They also started installing the Trickum fishing platform.
- That same update notes crews were still removing rock in the Trickum parking and cul-de-sac areas.
Earlier this year, the March travel feature expected the park to finish in fall 2026. The city's own page now says spring 2027. So this is another target that moved, though the pour-by-pour updates show steady work toward it.
The planned water trail to Olde Rope Mill Park is the piece that will eventually connect this park to the mountain bike trails downstream.
Rubes Creek is still in the paperwork stage
On the east side of downtown, the Rubes Creek Trail is already open as a 0.70-mile concrete path. It starts on Arnold Mill Road near Fire Station 14 and heads south along the creek.
The planned connector would link Arnold Mill Road and Highway 92 through Springfield Drive, with a pedestrian bridge to Springfield Park. In its May 2026 Parks Bond update, the city said the project was waiting on FEMA "No Rise" issues to be resolved. That process could take six to nine months, with permitting and bidding after it, and the city hoped to start construction in spring 2027. Because Rubes Creek hasn't been bid yet, it's two steps behind Dupree Road.
What to ride and walk while the links get built
Olde Rope Mill Park, at 690 Olde Rope Mill Road, needs no new construction to be worth a weekend morning. The Taylor Randahl Memorial Mountain Bike Trails there total 14 miles on three trail systems. SORBA Woodstock builds and maintains them with the city.
A few rules catch first-timers:
- The riding direction changes by day. Most loops run clockwise on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and counterclockwise on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, according to SORBA Woodstock. Hikers and runners are welcome but must yield to bikes and travel in the opposite direction.
- Check after rain. SORBA posts open and closed status on its trail status page.
- E-bikes. The city's park page counts a bike that runs on a throttle without pedaling as a motor vehicle, and it can't be ridden on the Corps of Engineers property without authorization. Pedal-assist bikes whose motor stops when you stop pedaling are treated as mountain bikes.
For slower outings, the flat Trestle Rock Trail runs about 0.4 mile along the Little River past the ruins of the old rope mill's water chute. The Dupree Park Family Mountain Bike Trails at 513 Neese Road are wide and smooth and include a short skills trail for kids and new riders.
To keep up with the new links, watch for the city's notice to proceed on Dupree Road and Rope Mill Road. Once it's issued, the 90-day count starts, and that's the one date on this list with a contract behind it.
Trail access and a quick walk to downtown are often on a buyer's list. If you're thinking about selling a home near Woofstock Park, Rope Mill Road or the Little River corridor, I'd love to help you show buyers what's close by. The House Chick can stage your home and film a Spotlight Video that includes the trails nearby. Schedule your free home valuation & staging consult.
