GENESEE COUNTY -- The long wait is almost over.

For more than a decade, separate groups and governments all over the county have struggled to build individual trails, one long mile by difficult mile.

They've spent endless hours winning the hearts and minds of wary residents, wooed landowners for easement rights, dug deep in public pockets to fund engineering and construction.

The dream: that one day, all those bits and pieces would somehow come together into one vast, interconnected countywide trail system.

Well, tomorrow has finally arrived.

The Genesee Regional Trail Council held its official coming-out party this week for the trailblazing phase of the Genesee County Regional Trail Plan.

Headed up by planners from the Genesee County Metropolitan Planning Commission and funded by a Ruth Mott Foundation grant, the council has spent months developing a vision and strategy for connecting the dots of individual trail segments.

In June, they unveiled the top 10 trail priorities.

Now they're ready to get the top five projects off the ground.

Starting in November, committees for the five trails will begin work on preliminary engineering and cost studies, grant writing, easement research and other pre-construction issues.

Heading up the work are county planners Derek Bradshaw and Heidi Phaneuf.

"We've always had lots of individual people and groups working on this but trail advocates can only go so far on their own," said Stephany Diana, a founding member of the Friends of the Flint River Trail. "This is a coordinated plan with professional staff support from the county and that makes a huge difference.

"It may seem like a very simple idea but it takes professionals to deal with all the funding and engineering and coordinated planning to make it happen."

Some of what's in the works:

Flint River Trail:

-- Redesign of trail through Riverbank Park in Flint.

-- Complete route around Flint city water plant with crossing improvements at Dort Highway.

-- Safety improvements and signage.

Trail connection between Hamilton Avenue and Riverside Drive.

Genesee Valley Trail:

-- Acquire land and easements for 12 miles along the former CN Rail line from Flint to Swartz Creek.

-- Pedestrian walkway over I-75 at M-21.

-- Continued pathway along M-21 from I-75 to Ballenger Highway.
Grand Traverse Greenway:

-- Acquire land and easements to build 4.9 miles along former CSX rail line from the Flint River Trail at Grand Traverse Boulevard to Maple Road at the border of Burton and Grand Blanc Township.
M-15 Heritage Route:

-- Acquire land and easements for 27.3 miles from north county line in Forest Township to Goodrich.
Trolley Line Trail:

-- Add 7.7 miles to the existing 2 miles in Clio to connect Clio and Mt. Morris to the Saginaw County line along the Consumers Energy right-of-way.

"We all see the recreational and health values but the economic impact of an interconnected trail system is invaluable," said Jack Minore, a former state lawmaker and longtime trail advocate. "I've seen trails go in where every single town had dried up along the way. Then a few years later you ride that trail and see rundown houses turned into bed-and-breakfasts, abandoned storefronts become restaurants and ice cream shops ... houses along a trail worth 10 percent more than ones that aren't."

It won't happen all at once -- even if they started today it will probably be at least five years, said Minore. But for longtime trail advocates, that feels like the blink of an eye.

"All these things have been talked about for a very long time," said Diana. "This is really exciting stuff to think it's really happening."