The Clinton River Trail is a 16-mile-long
rail trail
A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...
in
Oakland County, Michigan
Oakland County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a principal county of the Detroit metropolitan area, containing the bulk of Detroit's northern suburbs. Its county seat, seat of government is Pontiac, Mic ...
. It links the
West Bloomfield Trail to the west and the
Macomb Orchard Trail to the east, and is a segment of the
Iron Belle Trail and
Great Lake to Lake Trail Route 1. From west to east, the trail is within the cities of
Sylvan Lake,
Pontiac Pontiac most often refers to:
* Pontiac (Odawa leader) ( – 1769), Native American war chief
*Pontiac (automobile), a former General Motors brand
Pontiac may also refer to:
Places and jurisdictions Canada
* Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality
** Apo ...
,
Auburn Hills
Auburn Hills is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. A northern suburb of Detroit, Auburn Hills is located about north of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 24,360.
Auburn Hills is home to ...
,
Rochester Hills
Rochester Hills is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, United States. A northern suburb of Detroit, Rochester Hills is located about north of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 76,300.
The area was first sett ...
, and
Rochester, Michigan
Rochester is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 12,711 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. It is a northern suburb in Metro Detroit located 20 miles north of the city of ...
.
Parts of the trail run along the
Clinton River
The Clinton River is a river in southeastern Michigan in the United States. It is named in honor of DeWitt Clinton, who was governor of New York from 1817 to 1823.
The main branch of the river rises from wetlands and coldwater tributaries from ...
. From west to east, the trail is mostly downhill, with an elevation of 940 ft. in Sylvan Lake and 690 ft. east of Rochester.
History
The
Michigan Air Line Railway
The Michigan Air Line Railway was a railroad company in the United States. It was incorporated in 1875 and constructed a line between Richmond, Michigan, and Jackson, Michigan, between 1877 and 1884. It was under the control of the Grand Trunk ...
company was formed in 1875 and in 1880 built tracks between Pontiac and Rochester. That same year,
Grand Trunk Western Railroad
The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company was an American subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, later of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad ha ...
acquired the track.
The company abandoned the railroad in 1998 and the rails were removed in 1999.
In 2003,
Rails to Trails Conservancy funded a master plan to establish the trail.
Hikers and cyclists used the railroad bed before it officially opened in spring 2004.
There were once three detours in place that took users off the former rail route: Crossing Telegraph Road in Pontiac, crossing
I-75
Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Southeastern United States, Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end ...
in Auburn Hills, and through downtown Pontiac. Over the years, solutions were funded to close these gaps:
*A bridge across I-75 opened in fall 2003.
*A bridge across Telegraph Road was built in 2012.
*In 2023, Pontiac received funding for the Pike Street Clinton River Trail Connector Project, which would build a pathway along Pike Street and begin the North Spur Trail (using the abandoned railroad line that branches to the north and becomes the
Polly Ann Trail in
Orion Township). It would connect the Clinton River Trail at Bagley Street on Pontiac's west side to the trail at Opdyke Road on the east side.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Friends of the Clinton River Trail
Rail trails in Michigan