Genesee County Commissioner James Avery spoke at Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting for the new Embury-Cook Road Trail in Grand Blanc Township.

Here are his remarks:

Good afternoon, everyone,

I’m excited to be here today to help celebrate the completion of the Embury-Cook Trail.

The Embury-Cook Trail is an important piece of the Genesee County Legacy Trails, a non-motorized system that will connect more than 180,000 residents to a comprehensive network of trails and sidewalks.

Connections like the Embury-Cook trail promote Genesee County’s core priority of healthy, livable, and safe communities by improving access to places such as parks, schools, libraries, medical facilities, neighborhoods, and local businesses.

I want to congratulate Grand Blanc Township and everyone who helped to bring this project from an idea to reality. Projects like these take careful planning, partnerships and collaboration, and a cohesive vision. Most importantly, they need people who are willing to look beyond what exists today and imagine what our communities can become tomorrow.

This trail is a great addition to Grand Blanc Township and Genesee County as a whole. Through the completion of this trail, residents can now travel from the City of Grand Blanc and the Grand Blanc Bicentennial Park to the Genesys Regional Medical Center and will become a key connector to our surrounding communities as the Legacy Trails are built out. Every connection we make brings us one step closer to a community where residents can safely walk and bike to the places where people work, live, and play.

We are not simply building trails in Genesee County, rather, we are building a legacy. We are creating communities where our children and grandchildren will want to stay, where families can put down roots, and where new residents will see Genesee County as a place they want to call home.

Today, we get to celebrate one more piece of that vision becoming a reality. The Embury-Cook Trail is one piece of a much larger puzzle, and with every piece we complete, we get closer to the healthy, happy, and resilient communities we envision for Genesee County.

Thank you for inviting Genesee County to be here to celebrate this milestone. Now, let us officially celebrate the completion of the Embury-Cook Trail!

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation has committed up to $25 million over the next five years to expand and connect nonmotorized trails and sidewalks throughout Genesee County.

The future is bright in Genesee County!