For the past week, we’ve been looking at the current explosive growth of the Raleigh greenway system: $35 million to add about 45 miles of greenway. By 2014, Raleigh should have about 116 miles of greenway, with new, vital links along the Neuse River, Crabtree Creek, Walnut Creek, House Creek and Honeycutt Creek.

The current construction will basically fulfill the city’s 1976 goal of establishing a greenway network, a secondary, pedestrian transportation system making it possible to get around much of Raleigh with minimal exposure to motorized traffic.

While Raleigh is well on its way toward a greenway network worthy of national envy, what about the rest of the Triangle? How are we coming along to fulfill the Circle the Triangle concept first promoted by the Triangle Greenways Council in the 1990s?

There’s promising news on two fronts.

After innumerable delays, a bridge over I-40 in Durham linking 7.7 miles of the American Tobacco Trail north into downtown Durham with trail on the south side of I-40 extending into Chatham and western Wake County appears ready to become reality. In late February, a $7.5 million contract for the bridge and about 4 miles of connecting trail was received and subsequently approved by both Durham and the N.C. Department of Transportation. Construction is scheduled to begin in about a month, the project is expected to be completed in June 2013.

It’s been an exhaustive wait. The 22-mile American Tobacco Trail was conceived in the 1980s, the first stretch of trail opened in the 1990s and its completion has been eagerly anticipated since.

“All I can say is there are so many people asking about this, anticipating its completion that it’s great that it’s finally happening,” Dale McKeel, Durham’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator said Wednesday.

The American Tobacco Trail is considered the spine of the Circle the Triangle goal: It was envisioned that trails in adjoining municipalities would link into the ATT, making it possible to ride a bike from any municipality in the Triangle to any other. The most coveted connection: From downtown Durham to downtown Raleigh. That leads us to the good news on the second front.

In January, the Wake County Commissioners directed that greenways be added to projects considered for funding through a $50 million open space bond approved by voters in 2007. Previously, the money had been targeted to “lands such as forests, meadows, floodplains and stream corridors,” according to the Wake County Web site. “The top priority is to protect and improve water quality by safeguarding lakes, rivers and streams.”

About half of the $50 million remains, $5 million of which is immediately available, according to Sig Hutchinson, who chairs the county’s Open Space and Parks Advisory Committee. Money would be available in matching funds, meaning the municipality would have to put up as much as the county. And there is a cap on the county’s total outlay per project of $500,000 to $750,000.

Greenway fans couldn’t have a better advocate for making sure the commissioners’ mandate is carried out. Hutchinson was a major backer of the Circle the Triangle concept when he served as president of the Triangle Greenway Council and has been instrumental in pushing greenway development throughout the Triangle. He knows how — and where — the money can best be spent.

“I haven’t been so excited about finding real money in a long time,” Hutchinson said Wednesday.

Here are some areas where Hutchinson thinks the money can be most effective.

Cary: White Oak Creek Greenway connection to the American Tobacco Trail. Currently, Cary’s White Oak Creek Greenway stops a couple miles shy of the ATT. It’s a crucial couple of miles because it would make that vital link between downtown Durham and Raleigh. Here’s the problem: the remaining two miles is actually in Apex, and Apex is more interested in completing it’s Beaver Creek Greenway, which will connect downtown Apex with the American Tobacco Trail.

“We’ve jokingly talked about annexing Apex,” says Hutchinson.

And Cary has been above offering its expertise outside its jurisdiction to get a trail done. The 4.5-mile stretch of the ATT in Chatham County was in limbo until Cary stepped in and had its planners address key design issues.

Knightdale: As part of the developing Neuse River Trail, a $630,000 suspension bridge (the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the state, according to Hutchinson) will be built over Mingo Creek. The goal is to build three miles of greenway connecting the Neuse River Trail to Knightdale. “The [open space] money wouldn’t get the greenway all the way to Knightdale, but it’s a good start,” Hutchinson.

Wake Forest: Already under construction where Smith Creek dumps into the Neuse River is what Hutchinson says will be the longest pedestrian bridge in the state. The goal: link the Neuse River Trail with the town of Wake Forest. Again, says Hutchinson, the county contribution wouldn’t be quite enough to make the entire connection, but it’s close.

Hutchinson says Holly Springs and Morrisville have also expressed interest in applying for open space matching funds.

This much appears nearly certain for the Triangle’s greenway system:

• In about a month, Raleigh’s House Creek Greenway will link the 12-mile Crabtree Creek Trail with the Reedy Creek and Rocky Branch greenways, a total distance of about 9 miles (with connections to the south with the Walnut Creek Trail and to the north with Umstead State Park and Cary’s Black Creek Greenway).
• By summer 2013, the 22-mile American Tobacco Trail will be completed, linking downtown Durham with western Wake County.
• By summer 2013, Raleigh’s 28-mile Neuse River Trail will be done, running from Falls Lake dam south to the Wake County line, where it will meet with five more miles in Johnston County, into Clayton.
• By fall 2013, Raleigh’s Walnut Creek Greenway will be complete from the Farmer’s Market off Lake Wheeler Road east to the Neuse River Trail, a distance of about 12 miles. (From there, it will join with a little under three miles of greenway planned through N.C. State’s Centennial Campus, then connected with existing greenway linking with and running around Lake Johnson.)
• By early 2014, Raleigh’s Walnut Creek Greenway will be done from near Ebenezer Church Road downstream to the Neuse River Trail, a distance of 16.7 miles.

The Triangle may not be circled with greenway, but within two years much of it will be connected.

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A week(plus) of greenways

Our week(plus) of greenways:

Thursday, April 12: House Creek Greenway to Open June 25 (Read: Memorial Day)
Monday: 90 Second Escape: Raleigh’s Growing Greenway System
Tuesday: Raleigh’s Neuse River Trail: Another 3.5 miles by August, 16.1 miles by November.
Wednesday: Raleigh’s Greenway: 2014 and Beyond.
Today: The big picture: A look at how the Triangle’s greenway network will look in less than two years.

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The post A greenway-connected Triangle appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Durham discovered the shortfall in July when it opened bids from eight contractors on the project, which also calls for about 4 miles of paved trail. The lowest bid, from Blythe Construction, came in at $7.75 million, about $2 million more than the $5.8 million — including $4.7 million in NCDOT funding — the city has allotted. The shortfall has discouraged and annoyed — but not surprised — regional greenway advocates and users: As far back as 2007 the city estimated the project could cost as much as $6.3 million.

Asked Wednesday how what options Durham might have to bridge the gap, project manager Byron Brady and Dale McKeel, the proactive coordinator of Durham’s bicycle and pedestrian program, both said they were “not at liberty to say.”

On the other side of the Triangle, however, Triangle greenways uber-advocate Sig Hutchinson was not so constrained.

Hutchinson believes the bridge could be bundled with pending greenway projects in Cary and Raleigh to qualify for federal TIGER 3 funds. TIGER 3 involves transportation-specific funds available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal program launched two years ago to help dig the economy out of a black hole. $20 million in TIGER 1 funds, for instance, helped Raleigh fast-track the 28-mile Neuse River Greenway, the initial 8 miles of which is scheduled to open in September. The entire project is scheduled to be completed in 2013.

“As soon as I heard about the Durham bridge, I called called Vic [Lebsock, Raleigh’s senior greenway planner] and Doug [McRainey, parks planner for the town of Cary] to see about Tiger 3,” Hutchinson said yesterday.

Among the various requirements for Tiger 3 funds, a project must already be designed and shovel ready — meaning construction can start within 30 days of receiving funds — and an application must include a minimum of $10 million in projects. Applicants must also have a minimum of 20 percent in matching funds. Raleigh and Cary both have at least one key project that can be thrown into the mix.

Raleigh: Thanks in part to those Tiger 1 funds, Raleigh is in the midst of a greenway construction boom. In addition to the 28-mile Neuse River Greenway, the city is building the 3-mile House Creek Greenway, which will link the 15-mile Reedy Creek/Rocky Branch/Umstead B&B trail system with the 11-mile Crabtree Creek Trail; the last 4-mile stretch of the Crabtree Creek Trail, which will link the existing 11 miles of greenway with the emerging Neuse Trail; and a 2.9-mile stretch of the Walnut Creek Greenway. That will lengthen Walnut Creek, which runs along the southern edge of Raleigh, to 6.7 miles, but still leave it a mile and a half short of connecting with the Neuse River Greenway. It’s that last 1.6-mile stretch that Raleigh would seek Tiger 3 funding for.

Cary: Cary’s White Oak Creek Greenway is 2 miles short of connecting with the American Tobacco Trail. That stretch has been problematic according to Doug McRainey, Cary parks planning manager, because it’s actually in Apex and Apex hasn’t expressed much interest in the project.

“It’s north of their population center,” says McRainey. Besides, Apex is pushing to make its own ATT connection along Beaver Creek to the south.

Cary sees the 2 miles as key to its own system because the ATT connection would make it possible to take the White Oak Creek Greenway to Bond Park, where travelers could pick up the Black Creek Greenway for the 7-mile trek on to Lake Crabtree. There 5 miles of trail in adjoining Umstead State Park links with Raleigh’s Reedy Creek Greenway.

The TIGER 3 application process encourages bundling of interrelated urban projects, which would seem to bode well for a Cary/Durham/Raleigh package. Boding not-as-well is the fact that part of the package — the White Oak Creek element — is more rural than TIGER 3 likes to see for its urban applications. McRainey says that partially derailed a joint application between Raleigh, Cary and Wake Forest, among others, for TIGER 2 funds. There’s also plenty of competition for the $527 million in TIGER 3 funds available, with upwards of 200 applications expected.

Still, among the options being openly discussed, it offers hope for a community teased with the prospect of a bridge over I-40 for more than a decade.

“It’s a potential solution,” says Hutchinson, who says the bridge plays a key roll in the development of a Trianglewide greenway network.

“It’s huge,” says Hutchinson. “When you start thinking about the missing links in the system, you’ve got that one, White Oak Creek, the quarry, Walnut Creek and the Neuse. Everything else is just spurs connecting to the grid.” Plug in these missing links, complete that grid and a formidable secondary transportation system will exist for non-motorized travelers in the Triangle.

Applicants have until October 31 to apply for TIGER 3 funds.

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Follow-up post: ‘Could a TIGER save Durham’s American Tobacco Trail Bridge?’

The post Could a TIGER save Durham’s American Tobacco Trail bridge? appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Joe Godfrey, parks planner with the Town of Cary, tells GGNC that a 1.3-mile missing link of the Black Creek Greenway should be finished mid-April. The stretch would extend the existing 5.6 miles of Black Creek Greenway running south from Lake Crabtree to Chapel Hill Road on to Maynard Road. A short stretch of the sidewalk/greenway will run alongside Maynard before it crosses High House Road. From there, Godfrey says another short missing link should begin construction soon and will link with existing greenway into the heart of Bond Park.

Here’s the significance of these two small stretches of trail:

• They will create a continuous 7-mile stretch of greenway running from Lake Crabtree to Bond Park.
• At it’s norther end, at Lake Crabtree, the trail connects, via a one-mile stretch of gravel road, with the 5-mile bike & bridle trail that runs through Umstead State Park. Cumulative connected distance: 12 miles.
• The far end of the bike & bridle trail connects with the Reedy Creek Greenway in Raleigh. That greenway links with the Rocky Branch Greenway, for about 10 miles of greenway (with a half-mile sidewalk connection along Gorman Street). Cumulative connected distance: 22 miles.
• The far end of the Rocky Branch Greenway connects with the 6.5-mile (currently) Walnut Creek Greenway along the south side of Raleigh. Cumulative connected distance: 28.5 miles.
• Backing up to the Reedy Creek Trail, just after it takes the pedestrian bridge over I-440/le Beltline, another greenway, the 3-mile House Creek, is under construction and expected to be completed by year’s end. Cumulative connected distance: 31.5 miles.
• House Creek is significant because it will connected the Reedy Creek Greenway with the 11.7-mile Crabtree Trail greenway. Cumulative connected distance: 43.2 miles.
• Backing up to Bond Park, where the Black Creek Greenway concludes on the southern end, it connects with Cary’s White Oak Creek Greenway. Eventually, White Oak Creek will run 7.1 miles and link with the American Tobacco Trail, the nearly complete jewel of the region’s greenways running 22 miles from western Wake County into downtown Durham. Currently, White Oak Creek is 5.3 miles, with two breaks: a short one between MacArthur Drive and Davis Drive, where a rail line must be negotiated, and just past NC 55 where the trail will be closed through next December for construction of the Triangle Expressway. Let’s put the current distance on this one at 4 miles, for a cumulative connected distance of 48 miles.

More connections are near on the Raleigh end that will extend the cumulative connected distance of greenways in Cary and Raleigh (with the help of Umstead) to in excess 75 miles. Read more about those Raleigh connections here and here. For a comprehensive map of the Cary Greenway system (from which the above map was taken, go here.)

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