Of our recent greenway coverage (see below), Bob writes: “Great overview! The only section I didn’t see mentioned this week is the missing link of the Crabtree greenway between Lindsay Drive and Umstead. Any good news on this one?”

I asked Sig Hutchinson about this stretch last week. Sig, as many of you may know, is the Triangle’s go-to guy when it comes to making trails happen. Back in the 1990s, he was the driving force behind getting mountain bike trails established at the Beaverdam area of Falls Lake. He moved on to become president of the Triangle Greenways Council, pushing greenway development throughout the Triangle. More recently, he’s been the chairman of the Wake County Open Space and Parks Advisory Committee, spearheading 2007’s successful $50 million Wake County open space bond referendum. Whenever there’s a snag in trail and greenway development, Sig usually is brought in to unsnag things. Such is the case with the aforementioned stretch of the Crabtree Creek Trail.

At present, the Crabtree Creek Trail runs about 12 miles along its namesake tributary, from Lindsay Drive downstream to Milburnie Road. Construction will soon begin on the 4.6 miles of greenway linking the Milburnie end of the trail with the Neuse River Trail, a 28-mile work-in-progress that should be finished in about a year. The two-mile stretch would create a link on the northwest end of Crabtree Creek Trail, from Lindsay Drive into Umstead State Park. The link would help fulfill one of the city of Raleigh’s primary greenway goals: to create an interconnected greenway network. In this case, a completed 18-mile Crabtree Creek Trail would provide a link through east and north Raleigh between the Neuse River Trail and Umstead State Park. From Umstead, greenway users can access Raleigh greenway on the west side of town as well as Cary greenway that is on the brink of connecting with the 22-mile American Tobacco Trail, which is on the brink (in a little over a year) of running into downtown Durham.

Unfortunately, the two-mile stretch of Crabtree Creek greenway-to-be between Lindsay Drive and Umstead has been caught in the crossfire of a dispute between local homeowners and a quarry through which the greenway would pass. The quarry has said it would grant greenway access to its land if the city allows it to expand operations at the site. That expansion would bring blasting closer to the homeowners, which doesn’t make them happy. Thus, a stalemate.

When I asked Sig for an update on the situation last week, he replied, “I can’t talk about it.” That means some sort of negotiation is going on. Often, that’s an encouraging sign: You can’t reach an agreement if you aren’t talking. Unfortunately, the three sides — the quarry, the homeowners, the city — have been “talking” for a dozen years.

An argument could be made that with the impending completion of the 2.9-mile House Creek Greenway, the Crabtree connector becomes less important. When it opens in about a month, House Creek will link the Crabtree Creek Trail at Crabtree Valley Mall with the greenway on Raleigh’s west side (Rocky Branch and Reedy Creek), as well as Umstead and the Cary greenway.

The Crabtree connector, though, is about more than just greenway. While I haven’t explored the two miles between Umstead and Lindsay Drive (it’s on private land, which would be trespassing, which would be illegal), those who have say it’s probably the most scenic stretch along Crabtree Creek from Lake Crabtree all the way to the Neuse. The added exposure of a greenway through this area would, I think, be the catalyst for awakening interest in Crabtree Creek’s long ignored, true recreational attribute: paddling.

Crabtree Creek is the rare, reliably navigable waterway through a major metro area. The creek has its remote stretches (Umstead, the wetlands near Raleigh Boulevard), it’s decidedly suburan stretches (through the back of Crabtree Valley Mall), it’s brushes with the 1 percent (along Allegheny Drive, where John Edwards once lived). Mostly, it’s an intimate passage under a full canopy, navigable year round. Yet there’s not one official put-in along this roughly 24-mile stretch.

There is a less contentious option for the Crabtree connector: a route that would leave Crabtree Creek at Ebenezer Church Road, head up the hill, then work its way though neighborhoods before dropping back down to the creek before heading into Umstead. That would bypass part of the scenic beauty those familiar with the stretch rave about. It would also bypass an abandoned portion of the quarry that could be used during heavy rains to collect flood water — and create what Sig Hutchins says would be the highest waterfall on the East Coast.

That would be cool, no doubt. But at this point, it still, after a dozen years, remains all talk. Perhaps it’s time for that talk to veer away from the creek and quarry and into the less contentious alternate route.

The Quarry Route

View Crabtree Connector to Umstead State Park in a larger map

* * *

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: A Greenway-Connected Triangle.

* * *

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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.

* * *

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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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.

* * *

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!.

The ride was the first of what promises to be an annual event. The ride — a 39-mile excursion from the N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh to the entertainment Mecca of downtown Durham (American Tobacco Complex, Durham Bulls Athletic Park, Durham Performing Arts Center, the jail) was intended to show how a dream of 40 years — of being able to ride a bike on greenway from Raleigh to the heart of Durham — is ever-so-close to being reality. About 75 percent of Friday’s ride was off-road: starting on the Reedy Creek Greenway in Raleigh, winding through Umstead State Park (save for an odd “short-cut” that had us mixing it up with lunchtime traffic on Harrison Avenue and Weston Parkway) down Cary’s Black Creek and White Oak Creek greenways and on to the American Tobacco Trail for the 22-mile (plus or minus) ride into downtown Durham.

Perhaps more telling than the 75 percent of the ride on greenway was the 25 percent that wasn’t. It wasn’t long ago that riding on greenway in the Triangle was a rare privilege: There was so little greenway that each stretch of 8-foot-wide blacktop, no matter how long, was an exotic respite from riding in traffic. Friday, it was the stints riding in traffic that were rare. There was a definite sense that greenways have evolved from a recreational plaything into a viable and vital transportation alternative. And that was just one of Friday’s encouraging signs.

Chuck Flink, president and co-founder of Durham-based Greenways Inc. and board chairman of the East Coast Greenway Alliance, noted that the route, which runs through six jurisdictions — Raleigh, Umstead State Park, Cary, Wake County, Chatham County, the city and county of Durham — is the longest urban trail in North Carolina. And Sig Hutchinson, the person most responsible for the Triangle’s growing greenway network, from his early work as president of the Triangle Greenways Council to his more recent efforts promoting open space in Wake County, finally answered a question I’ve been putting to him for nearly a decade: Has the Triangle’s greenway network become an irresistible force?

“This ride shows that we have reached the tipping point for greenways in the Triangle,” Hutchinson told the riders in Raleigh, implying that momentum behind greenway development has reached the point that future development is now assured, that greenways are now viewed in the Triangle as a basic service on par with drinking water and trash collection.

He went a step further: “We now have what I believe is the best greenway system in the country.”

Most encouraging were the riders themselves. The ride’s lead organizer was the East Coast Greenway Alliance, a non-profit charged with creating a 3,000-mile greenway from Key West, Fla., to the Canadian border that will pass through the Triangle on the route taken Friday. The group was anticipating an intimate turnout: Thursday afternoon 40 people had signed up for the ride on the event’s Facebook page. By ride time Friday afternoon more than 150 cyclists were ready to roll. (“I’m not worried,” said an excited, if not worried, Flink as he surveyed the crowd shortly before noon.)

As encouraging as their numbers was the riders’ diversity. There were riders in their 20s, there were riders in their 70s. There were Category bike racers, there were folks who looked like the most they’d ridden in the past year was down there street. There were people on mountain bikes, on road bikes, on hybrids, on tandems on Bike Fridays. And it was not, as is often the case with bike events, a nearly all-white gathering. It was a good cross-section of the Triangle, underscoring the mass appeal — and support — for greenways. Along the way I rode with a fellow who does four-hour rides from his home in North Raleigh to mountain bike at Lake Crabtree, a woman who commutes from seven miles one-way from downtown to North Raleigh, a Cary tech worker who commutes via Davis Drive to RTP, a North Durham woman who won her cycling category at the senior games in Durham County, then showed up at the state senior games to find people with carbon bikes and aero helmets. (Alas, she returned home with no gold.)

Again, a variety of riders, a variety of people, all greenway supporters.

At ride’s end, the notion of greenways evolving from luxury to necessity was underscored by the person who counts most in North Carolina on transportation matters, Gene Conti, secretary of the N.C. Department of Transportation. Conti, eschewing the sartorial trappings of typical of high-level officials in favor of a polo short and khakis, shared an anecdote from his first days in office. When it came time for his Official Portrait to be taken, he was taken outside for a suitable backdrop. He glanced behind him to see he was framed beneath the arch of the old Highway Department building.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” he told the photographer. “You’ll have to air brush that out. We’re not just about highways anymore. We are now a full-service transportation department.”

“The way we look at transportation has changed,” he added. “We have options, and we need to start thinking about those options.”

* * *

Friday’s route

Here are links to greenways that were part of Friday’s Cross Triangle Greenway ride:
Reedy Creek Greenway (Raleigh)
Umstead State Park
Black Creek Greenway, Cary
White Oak Creek Greenway, Cary
American Tobacco Trail, Wake, Chatham and Durham counties

* * *
For a slideshow of Friday’s ride, go here.

The post A greenway ride into the future appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

Like ride your bike from Raleigh to Durham, mostly on greenways?

Friday at noon, 40 bikers/greenway enthusiasts will set forth from the N.C. Museum of Art on a 39-mile bike ride that will wind up five hours later in downtown Durham, at the American Tobacco Complex/Durham Bulls Athletic Park. It’s part of an effort to boost support and awareness of greenway development, support for riding greenways not just from Raleigh to Durham, but from the Triangle to Key West, Fla., or to the Canadian border. The latter is the goal of event sponsor the East Coast Greenway Alliance, which is putting together a mostly paved, off-road bike path that will run more than 3,000 miles along the East Coast. The event is also sponsored by the local Cross Triangle Greenway group. http://www.crosstrianglegreenway.org/

The path for tomorrow’s ride is the East Coast Greenway’s route through the Triangle. And a surprising amount of it — nearly 75 percent, according to ride organizers — is finished.

Reasons to ride:

• You’ll be able to discover the 75 percent of this 39 miles that is finished. More importantly, you’ll be able to find the best way to bridge the stretches that aren’t.
• Except for those brief on-road stretches, the ride will be devoid of competition from cars. (Do you know how difficult it is in the Triangle to ride 39 miles free of cars? It’s difficult, but thanks to the region’s growing greenway network it’s getting easier.)
• The ride has rest stops: at mile 10.5 (Cary’s Godbold Park), 22.6 (White Oak Church trailhead) and 31.4 (the REI at Southpoint Mall in Durham). Snacks, drinks, rest rooms — can life get better?
• It’s supposed to be sunny and 68 degrees. http://www.wral.com/weather/7day/

Perhaps the best reason to ride? The list of confirmed attendees, which reads like a  Who’s Who of Greenways — not just in the Triangle, but anywhere. Among the confirmed riders:

Dennis Markatos-Soriano, executive director of the East Coast Greenway Alliance (and UNC grad who grew up in Pittsboro).

Chuck Flink, president and founder of Durham-based Greenways Inc. One the nation’s top authorities on greenways.

Sig Hutchinson, whose contributions to local trail, open space and greenway development are two numerous to mention (go here for a rundown). The driving force behind greenway and trail development in the Triangle.

Some things you should know if you plan to ride:

• The ride starts at noon, at the N.C. Museum of Art.
• Can’t make it to the start? The peleton plans to hit the following locations at the following times: Cary’s Godbold Park, 1:20 p.m.; Bond Park, 1:25; White Oak Church trailhead, 2:45-3; REI in Durham, 4-4:15.
• There will be a shuttle, but you’ll need to sign up, pronto, when you sign up for the ride. Go here for that.
• The ride is free. You just need a bike and a helmet.
• What kind of bike? you ask. The route is mostly paved, mostly flat. However … there is five miles of fine, compacted gravel screenings through Umstead State Park and a little less than that on the American Tobacco Trail. Road tires will be OK; be advised there are some good hills in Umstead.
• A pace of 10-13 miles per hour is anticipated.
• * The ride is expected to reach downtown Durham a little after 5 p.m.
• There will be a little get-together at the end of the ride. Come prepared to get together.

You can find more information on the ride at Cross Triangle Greenway.

If you can’t make it, you can still live the ride in real time by following my account on Twitter at JoeAGoGo. And if the boss busts you for Twittering in your cube, I’ll be writing about the ride next week. That report will also include a map of the route so you can ride it in your free time. Still, much as I’d like to pretend that reading my account will be like being there, there’s no substitute for actual participation. Try and join us.

Did I mention it’s supposed to be sunny and 68?

Photo at top: A goodly portion of Friday’s Cross Triangle Greenway ride is on the American Tobacco Trail.

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