Athens Clarke County Commissioners have authorized negotiations with a company that was the lowest bidder to build a trail bridge over the creek at the R.E.M. Murmur Trestle.
Astra Group was one of two companies bidding on the project, coming in at 5.76 million dollars, nearly two million dollars over a pre-bid estimate driven up by the skyrocketing price of timber in the wake of recent hurricanes and the coronavirus pandemic.
The bridge over Trail Creek is part of the Firefly Trail project, a pedestrian cycling path on an abandoned railroad bed that could eventually run from Athens to Union Point. ACC staff will now negotiate with the company on price and design changes to bring the cost down and return to the commission in December for possible approval.
The project includes 500 feet of new bridge, with two steel arch structures with a concrete deck on each end. In the middle, timber construction would echo the remains of the trestle standing there now — the image on the album cover of R.E.M.’s first LP in 1983, “Murmur.” It would be 14 feet wide to match the Firefly Trail width at either end, with two observation platforms of 10-by-25 feet.
