House Creek Greenway construction to begin in April
Raleigh will break ground in April on one of its most anticipated stretches of greenway: the 3-mile House Creek Greenway. Runners, bikers, distance walkers and other greenway enthusiasts have been especially interested in the greenway because it will link the 11 miles of completed Crabtree Creek Greenway to the east with about 14 miles of greenway running from Meredith College, over I-440 to the N.C. Museum of Art, then along Reedy Creek Road into Umstead State Park and into Cary. Some quick cyphering reveals the House Creek link will create a 28-mile network of greenway.* And that’s only taking into account greenway already open.
While the start of House Creek is good news, Raleigh’s chief greenway planner, Vic Lebsock, says the project will take about two years to complete. That’s longer than most 3-mile greenway projects because it involves digging pedestrian tunnels under two major roads: Lake Boone Trail and Glen Eden Road.
The House Creek Greenway will depart the Reedy Creek Greenway on the east side of the pedestrian bridge spanning I-440 near Wade Avenue. From there it heads north along House Creek to Lake Boone Trail. There, a grade-level crossing was deemed too dangerous because of the volume of traffic on Lake Boone Trail, so the road will be closed to accommodate construction of the pedestrian tunnel. From Lake Boone, the greenway will continue north along the inner Inner Beltline (DOT’s description, not mine) to Glen Eden, where it will go under the road and cross to the west side of the Beltline (or the outer Inner Beltline). It’ll noodle around briefly in Glen Eden Pilot Park, then continue up to Blue Ridge Road where it will cross at a Pedestrian Refuge —
Pedestrian Refuge?
“It’s a center median so you can cross one lane at a time,” explains Lebsock.
The greenway then crosses Crabtree Valley Avenue and connects with the Crabtree Creek Greenway at the McDonald’s.
The project also includes a connector path linking the neighborhood north of Wade Avenue and east of Ridge Road with the Reedy Creek Greenway and the emerging House Creek Greenway.
The completion of House Creek will come at a time when assorted trail tumblers in the Raleigh and Cary greenway systems will be falling into alignment. As reported yesterday, construction began last week on the 28-mile Neuse River Greenway; Lebsock says that stretch will open in phases and be completed in 2014. Included in that project are four-mile sections on both the Crabtree Creek and Walnut Creek greenways that will hook up those trails to the Neuse Greenway. Walnut Creek connects on the west side of Raleigh with the 4.5-mile Rocky Branch Greenway. Rocky Branch, with help from a 0.3-mile improvised connection through the N.C. State Campus and the 0.4-mile Gorman Street connector, connects with the Reedy Creek trail that runs through Meredith College, the N.C. Museum of Art and on to Umstead State Park.
That’s a lot to keep track of in words. The significance: With all this construction there could be nearly 80 miles of connected greenway in Raleigh and Cary sometime in 2014. If you were looking at getting in a good training ride on pure greenway — again, with a short, improvised connection through N.C. State — you could do a 35-mile loop traveling clockwise from Anderson Point on the Neuse to Walnut Creek to Rocky Branch to Reedy Creek to House Creek to Crabtree Creek.
I’ll post a comprehensive map depicting this development next week.
* Includes the five-mile stretch through Umstead that isn’t paved, but is a compacted screened gravel. Also includes about a half mile on the mostly gravel, little traveled Old Reedy Creek Road linking Umstead’s aforementioned bike and bridle trail with Cary’s Black Creek Greenway.
Photo: The House Creek Greenway will hook into the Reedy Creek Greenway on the other side of this pedestrian bridge spanning I-440.
