The Lake Norman Transportation Commission earlier this month endorsed additional exploration into creating a Red Line Trail for bicycle and pedestrian use alongside the route of the proposed Red Line. As envisioned by its backers, the trail would meander close to the rail line and eventually form a dedicated, 30-mile path for non-motorized travel between

Bank of America Stadium in downtown Charlotte and Main Street in Mooresville.

All Gwen Cook has to do now is prove the project is possible.

Cook, greenway planner for the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department, is assigned the task of completing the next step — preparing a Red Line Trail feasibility study for all seven governmental jurisdictions involved to review. The LNTC’s endorsement was a ceremonial rite of passage, but each future step will require more facts and figures.

“My plan is to get this ready as soon as I can,” Cook says. “The sooner we get the plans on paper, the easier it will be for town and county representatives and others to fully understand what is being proposed.”

Essentially, the Red Line Trail is viewed as a green and natural transportation option as well as a companion to the rail line. Bill Coxe, Huntersville’s transportation planner, an LNTC member and a man accustomed to looking decades down all kinds of roads to see what might be, joins Cook in envisioning a system of rail and trail inter-connections and access.

“You can get just about anyone to ride two miles on a bicycle,” Coxe said during the LNTC meeting, describing what could eventually evolve into a normal commute for a trail-rail customer. “Then they would be at a station where they could put their bicycle in a locker or return it at a rental counter and get on the train.”

But first the plan has to grow beyond the training-wheel stage.

In the coming weeks and months, Cook plans to present the feasibility study — a synopsis of penciled-in prospective routes, potential funding options and partnership possibilities — to governing agencies in Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson, Mecklenburg County, Mooresville and Iredell County. The goal is to provide enough answers to get the boards’ support for an expanded, detailed analysis of what the Red Trail Line could become.

“I think the project will sell itself when we get the details out,” Cook says. “The trail will be a transportation option, but it could also be a recreational and beautification project for each town as well.”

Coxe said the most important thing in terms of planning is to establish that the trail will be part of the region’s future.

“The priority is to get the plan on paper,” Coxe said in response to questions about how the trail could impact future developers’ plans to take advantage of Red Line proximity. “If the concept is endorsed and you can get a fairly detailed alignment on a map, future developers will have to design their projects around those existing plans.”

In terms of financing, Cook says she estimates development of the trail, from start to finish, would cost about $1 million per mile. The solid surface trail would be 12 to 15 feet wide and would, where possible, parallel the Red Line rail. She said she would expect municipalities, private property owners and future developers to provide up to 60 percent of the land required for the trail, but the most extensive planning, and potentially the most expensive aspect, of the project would revolve around rail crossings and transit station access.

“If you can’t access the stations, the plan doesn’t make sense,” Cook says. “The objective is for a trail and rail system.”

Cook told the LNTC preliminary studies of the Charlotte-to-Mooresville proposal indicate the trail would host between 1.2 million and 1.8 million trips annually and studies of communities with similar transit options in place show that up to 70 percent of those using bicycle and pedestrian trails are going to, or coming from, transit stations.

The plan, as currently sketched out, calls for 11 stations along the 30-mile route, but Cook stressed that everything now on the drawing board is subject to change.

“We’re obviously in the very early stages of this,” Cook said. “As the plan takes shape, citizen input is going to be very important. We want people to see what we’re talking about and, once we get a plan on paper, it will be much easier to explain, share ideas and talk about specifics.”

As far as a timeframe for the trail, Cook says that is one of the unknown details. Some members of the LNTC suggested the trail, if adopted, could be built in conjunction with the Red Line, but Cook says right-of-way and financing issues are separate for the two projects.

“I would expect the trail would be built incrementally,” she says, “unless we are able to get one big grant for the entire project.”

At the LNTC meeting, Davidson Commissioner and LNTC Chairman Brian Jenest said if the trail was created, he would want it all built at the same time.“

“All we need is $30 million,” Coxe said, pointing out just one of the many issues and obstacles squarely in the path of plans for a trail beside the rail.