Camden County LINK Trail

August 2022 Update:

The Camden County Parks Department, in partnership with its technical and engineering consultant NV5, will hosted a virtual public meeting to present the preliminary design for the Cooper River Bike/Pedestrian Bridge Project on August 17, 2022. This new 12’ wide, dual span steel bridge will cross over the Cooper River near Admiral Wilson Boulevard (Route 30) between Flanders Avenue and the Speedway gas station in Camden. The bridge will provide a safe alternative for pedestrians and bicyclists in the area to cross the Cooper River.

This project also represents one portion of the Camden County LINK Trail. When completed, the Camden County LINK Trail will travel through 17 Camden County municipalities, from the Ben Franklin Bridge in Camden to the Pinelands National Reserve in Winslow Township.

Information about the preliminary design for the proposed bridge and updates on the overall progress of the Camden County LINK Trail are available in the presentation PDF and meeting video links below.

Public comments are encouraged and will be accepted until Wednesday, September 7^th.

Public Meeting Materials:

2022 Segment 1A – Cooper River Bridge:

Overview

The Camden County Link is a planned 34-mile multi-use, off-road trail designed to serve as the “spine” for a County-wide trail network.

In 2017, the County completed a feasibility study for this spine, known at that time as the Cross Camden County Trail. The result was a trail alignment that travels through seventeen municipalities from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Camden to the Gloucester County line in lower Winslow Township. Along the way, the trail will travel through urban, suburban, and rural environments connecting many municipal and County parks and several downtown business districts. In addition, the trail will provide users with the opportunity to access hundreds of acres of public open space in Winslow Township. The feasibility study also identified the benefits of the trail to the local economy and the improved health of our residents. (See below for a link to this study and accompanying appendix).

Previous Public Meeting Materials

2020 Segment 1B (Audubon & Haddon Heights) Public Meeting
- Public Meeting Plans
- Recording of Live Meeting
2020 Segment 1C (Somerdale & Hi-Nella) Public Meeting
- Public Meeting Plans
- Recording of Live Meeting
2020 Segment 1D & 1E (Winslow Township) Public Meeting
- Public Meeting Plans
- Recording of Live Meeting

A number of drone videos have been produced identifying the preferred route for the trail through the entire length of the County. Links to these videos can be found below.

The next phase of the development of this trail has begun.

In 2017, the County was awarded a $200,000 Recreational Trails Grant by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to begin design work on a more than four-and-a-half-mile segment of the trail in Winslow Township.

In 2018, the County, with the assistance of the Rails to Trails Conservancy, was awarded a $1.2 million TAP grant for construction of the first new segment of this trail. This approximately one-mile segment will be built between East Atlantic Avenue and the Conrail railroad tracks in Audubon and Haddon Heights.

In 2019, the County, through an RFP process, awarded a $4,579,540 contract to NV5 to design approximately two thirds of the 34-mile trail over the next several years. Completing the design will allow the County to apply for State and Federal grants for construction. The County has prioritized this design work, identifying segments as Priority 1, Priority 2, and Priority 3.

In 2021, Camden County was awarded a $1 million grant for the Cooper River Bridge and a $3.2 million grant for a separate bicycle and pedestrian bridge over Route 130 (Crescent Boulevard) at Cooper River Park.

The first series of public meetings to present preliminary design plans for Priority 1 trail segments was held virtually in 2020. See the hyperlinks above for more information.

More public meetings will be held in the future for other trail segments as the design advances.

Drone Video 1 Camden & Pennsauken