The city is now designing the Durham Rail Trail. Here’s how you can weigh in.

The city owns the land and has the money to build the 1.8-mile Durham Rail Trail through neighborhoods north of downtown.

Now it wants the public’s help designing the trail and various features along the way.

The city will hold a series of meetings to gather ideas and feedback on every aspect of the trail, including access points, pavement, signs, outdoor furniture, public art and historical markers. People can also weigh in through an online survey or by leaving a comment on a crowdsource map.

The trail will become part of the city’s greenway system, eventually connecting with the American Tobacco Trail south of the city and the Ellerbee Creek Trail. It will make it easier for people to walk and cycle between West Village, on the west side of downtown, and the neighborhoods of Trinity Park, Duke Park and Old North Durham.

But the Durham Rail Trail will also be a linear park, with benches and other places to stop and linger.

The trail follows the path of the Belt Line, a railroad line built in the 1890s by Brodie Duke so trains could reach Duke tobacco warehouses and factories. In 1900, Duke sold the line to Norfolk & Western, predecessor of Norfolk Southern Railway, which continued to use it until the 1980s.

Early plans for turning the Belt Line into a trail were hatched in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2017 that Norfolk Southern agreed to sell the 18.8 acres to The Conservation Fund, a national environmental group, which then sold it to the city at a discount a year later.

Late last fall, the city learned it had received a $9 million federal grant to help build the trail. Now, along with local money and grants managed by the N.C. Department of Transportation, Durham has $16.3 million to design and build the basic trail.

Construction is expected to begin next year and take about 18 months, through the end of 2024, according to the city’s General Services Department, which is overseeing the project.

Durham Rail Trail meetings scheduled

The first meeting, to introduce the project, will take place Wednesday, July 20, in the Durham Armory, 212 Foster St., from 6 to 8 p.m. People can also tune in via Zoom, at bit.ly/RailTrailMeeting.

Public workshops — the first focused on trail amenities, the second on connections — will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 2 and Aug. 16 at the Durham Station Transportation Overview Room, 515 Pettigrew St.

A final meeting to summarize the first three and allow the city’s design consultants to respond will happen Sept. 28 from 6 to 8 p.m. back at the Armory. Like the first meeting, it will be available on Zoom.

For more information, and links to the online survey and crowdsource map, go to durhamrailtrail.com/.