The latest word from the field, via the ever-reliable Michael Bowers, a longtime greenway aficionado, is that the House Creek Greenway in Raleigh is pretty much open: “I rode across the bridge” — for the last couple of months the greenway’s lone missing link — “today [Saturday]! All paving is done … connecting to the Meredith-[Museum of Art] greenway trail. The tunnel under Glen Eden is closed though due to fencing installation…which should be done in a few days. You just have to go around via Ridge Road.”read more
Cary's Black Creek Greenway under construction at Castalia Drive.
“Hey,” I said interrupting whatever it was we were talking about. “That’s the Black Creek Greenway, isn’t it?”
Why I hadn’t noticed the bulldozer busy at work just beyond the Cycle Surgeon’s property line, I’m not sure because this was the fifth time in less than a week that I’d been at the Surgeon’s Cary garage as he patiently tried piecing together the bike I was borrowing after I’d broken the frame on mine. “I don’t want to spend a lot to get it running,” I’d say every time I brought the newly broken loaner in. Then, noting I have a race this Sunday, I’d add, “And I need it immediately.”
Matt Lodder, a k a the Cycle Surgeon, confirmed that it was indeed the vital last link in the Black Creek Greenway, a vital link between Umstead State Park and Raleigh’s 69-mile greenway network and Cary’s White Oak Creek Greenway, which is close to connecting to the American Tobacco Trail, which is close to connecting to downtown Durham.
“They sent us a letter in March saying they were going to start construction and that it would be done by the end of the year,” Matt said.
When finished, the Black Creek Greenway will run 5.6 miles, from Lake Crabtree County Park to the northeast to Cary’s Bond Park, just over a half mile to the west. Five miles of the greenway is complete; the remaining 0.6 of a mile is what is currently under construction. That stretch includes, according to the Town of Cary Web site:read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease the transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape — essentially, a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s not under a fluorescent bulb.read more
End of the 5.5-mile Johnston County line (for now).
“Do you know how far this goes?” the grade schooler on the Razor scooter asked as he scouted the greenway.
“It goes five and a half miles,” I said as I wrestled my bike off the roof rack.
“Five and a half miles?!” he repeated. “Wow!”
I caught myself as I noticed his mom standing nearby before adding, “And if you don’t mind breaking the law, you could go another five and a half.”
We were in a gravel parking lot off North O’Neil Street in Clayton, the trailhead for the Sam’s Branch Greenway. The 1.2-mile Sam’s Branch runs south, then east to the Neuse River, where it connects with a 4.3-mile stretch of now-open greenway that reaches the Wake County line, for a total run of 5.5 miles. There, a sturdy 3-foot-high wall of orange No Trespassing webbing emphatically blocks the trail, which was paved as far as the eye could see (about 200 yards).
That stretch marks the beginning of Raleigh’s Neuse River Trail, a partially completed work-in-progress that eventually will run upstream for 28 miles to the base of the Falls Lake dam. The 5.7-mile stretch runs from the Johnston County line north to Auburn Knightdale Road. It’s scheduled to open in October.
For those of you without calculators, that would be 11.2 miles of continuous greenway when the finished Auburn Knightdale stretch links with the Johnston County greenway.
This section will be especially enticing for greenway users seeking solitude. Unlike the northernmost 6.5-miles stretch of the Neuse Trail, from Falls Lake dam downstream to the WRAL Soccer Complex, which opened last October, the southern segment travels through more rural, less-developed country.
Check back Monday for a quick video escape down the new Johnston County stretch. And return next week for more updates on the Neuse River Trail and on Raleigh’s House Creek Greenway.
Triathlete Lance Armstrong. Word is he's strong on the bike.
In today’s Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer, I write about a Charlotte group (about to expand into the Triangle) called TriItForLife. The nonprofit’s goal is to take not particularly active women and make triathletes out of them. In six years, it’s produced more than 700 triathletes. But it is limited to women and until next year, only those in the Charlotte area. So what are the rest of us supposed to do?read more
