Triangle Parks and Greenways

[dmccall]

Why should the states be doing this when there is money collected and earmarked for this specific purpose?

Because this (building trails through the woods that either expressly serve locals or promote local tourism dollars) is not the purpose of the Federal Government.

Maybe we should take this argument back up to Philadelphia and duke it all out again.

[carynative]

I agree. Let local municipalities or either the state do it. I think our politiicans need to do a better job of arguing our funding needs in NC and help move us from the donor status to the recipient status. Don't get me wrong. I believe strongly that bike and ped transportation (greenways, etc.) is very important, however, I think that we have more pressing road needs (and by default, severe public transit needs).

[danclever]

I agree. Let local municipalities or either the state do it. I think our politiicans need to do a better job of arguing our funding needs in NC and help move us from the donor status to the recipient status. Don't get me wrong. I believe strongly that bike and ped transportation (greenways, etc.) is very important, however, I think that we have more pressing road needs (and by default, severe public transit needs).

Why should federal transportation dollars only go toward highways, airports, mass transit? The future ATT bridge over I-40 will serve an important transportation need (in my mind, pedestrians and bikes are a form of transit). Eventually it will help bike riders from south Durham, Chatham Co and even West Cary ride safely toward RTP. I'm not as familiar with the bridge in Cary, but it may also serve this alt transit need.

As for the bridge over I-440, I don't know that so much federal money had to go toward something so fancy. I'm also not sure if it fits a big transportation need (yet). But one could argue that bridges that are more recreational in nature do serve as mitigation to the effects of highways (i.e. make it possible to walk from one part of town to another without having to get into a car).

Also, in the big scheme of federal earmarks, funding for bike/ped projects like these are a drop in the bucket.

[carynative]

I see your point and I think I wasn't clear. I agree that bike/ped is a very important form of transportation, when it applies to getting a person from a to b without using their car. However, in the case of the I-440 bridge, it serves primarily a recreation purpose. In that case, the money should have gone to something more pressing OR it should have gone to installing bike lanes along a major commuter route, etc.

[Subway Scoundrel]

I see your point and I think I wasn't clear. I agree that bike/ped is a very important form of transportation, when it applies to getting a person from a to b without using their car. However, in the case of the I-440 bridge, it serves primarily a recreation purpose. In that case, the money should have gone to something more pressing OR it should have gone to installing bike lanes along a major commuter route, etc.

I see the bridge as the opening to the west side of Raleigh for many people who live inside the beltline. From inside the beltline, it is hard to get to the museum, Shank Forrest and Umstead Park from Glenwood Ave over to Hillsbourgh St on bike. With no bridge, people are basically closed out (or closed in) to either/or without the bridge, especially to Umstead.

Your access points are closed in from Glenwood and Crabtree mall on one end which no one should be near a bike unless you are taking the greenway from CC Hills or North Hills Drive, then the next is Glen Eden which is a traffic nightmare, especially at Blue Ridge/Duraleigh. No one would take Wade Ave on bike to get to Blue Ridge and if you go to Hillsbourgh and take the service road (Beryl Rd I think), you have to cross over somewhere by the arena or Blue ridge which is dangerous. All ways are a deathtrap. I lived near this area inside the beltline for most of my life and use to ride all the time and I never heading out due to no access. If I went to Umstead, it was by car.

I agree, it is for the most part recreational, but I think that is the point as it is an opening to Umstead and the parks before there. Not to mention, it is a nice bridge.

Yes, they could build a bike lane for work commuters but to be honest, it gets more use for recreational paths to the museum, Shank Forrest and especially the big one--Umstead Park.

[ncwebguy]

440 is a "wall" that is hard to get across in most of Raleigh, not just West Raleigh. The bridge is a bit overdone with appearances, and is not too useful as is. But when the trail to Ridge Road connector goes in, it will be a good alternative to non-Merideth College students who now have to go around to Hillsborough/Gorman which is a mess of an intersection itself.

When I went to NC State, I often biked to Crabtree via Dixie/Lake Boone/Ridge Rd/Glen Eden/Glen Eden Pilot Park/Blue Ridge/Homewood Banks. The worst was crossing Wade with the "hump" and Blue Ridge without a bike lane or sidewalk, and CVM's parking lot.

Method Road is nice, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Hillsborough Street and Lake Boone's 440 intersections are anything-but-automobile unfriendly, and the Glen Eden bridge is at the bottom of a valley that is hard to get out of on either side. Western Blvd is better now with the trail, but the 440 ramps are still dicey.

[orulz]

Method Road is nice, but it doesn't really go anywhere.

Getting to / from method on a bike is a problem, because of the sharp angle crossing of the railroad tracks at Beryl. Rather than do this, before the Reedy Creek greenway, I would always ride down Method and use the Ligon Street tunnel.

Long-term, I think that the Beryl Road railroad crossing should be closed, and a new crossing opened at Method, directly across from the on/offramps to the inner (eastbound) beltline. While they're at it, they could close the (nearly unused) Royal Street crossing and extend Beryl along the tracks to intersect with Royal. It would be nice if the Method Road crossing could be grade-separated, but it would be a perpendicular crossing with good visibility so it's not 100% necessary. Perhaps this could be ancillary to the (scheduled but unfunded) I-440 widening between US-1/64 and Wade.

[carynative]

thanks for the insight. i guess never living "ITB" i didn't think of what a wall the beltline could be to bicyclists. I guess the bridge is a good thing to remedy that.

[carynative]

Great article in the Lifestyles section of the N and O today regarding the future greenway connections in the area. After reading it though, I don't know if it's really wise to have a greenway end at the intersection of S. Saunders and the beltline.

[RaleighRob]

^Why not? Folks in South Raleigh deserve access to greenways as much as the rest of us.

[carynative]

Oh no, I didn't mean that in terms of folks not deserving the greenway, of course they do. It just doesn't seem like there is a good number of neighborhoods and such to feed usage in that area. Absolutely folks in that area should have greenway access.

[DanRNC]

Meeker proposes Neuse River Greenway

[ChiefJoJo]

Raleigh is proposing the largest parks bond in it's history, $109M. It would include a Senior Center, a new greenway on the Neuse River, land acquisition, and *maybe* a Shaw/St Aug's stadium. Here's a link to the city's more detailed information.

[Pack52]

This bond seems somewhat wasteful/pointless to me. The population desity around the Neuse river is very low, so people most likely would have to drive to get there. I would think you could construct many more greenways that would serve a large number of people with 13 million dollars. For example, North Hills and East with Big Branch Creek, South Raleigh, as well as other connectors to keep people biking off of major roads (mentioned several times previously). Once a good city infrastructure is in place, then we should think about the Neuse...

[orulz]

I'm with you. The Neuse River greenway is important, eventually, but there should be any number of higher priorities at the moment. Would this have to do with parks, or is something else related to pedestrian activities OK?

What I'm getting at is, imagine how much $13 million would buy us in the way of sidewalk connectivity. At a cost of $25 / linear foot where curb and gutter already exists, and $50 / lf where it does not (these are costs given by the town of Chapel Hill), figure on an average of $40 / lf. That's 325,000 linear feet of sidewalk, or 61.5 miles. I say that is more important at this juncture than spending it all on half of a 28 mile greenway in the outer reaches of the city.

Wonder when the last time Raleigh had a sidewalk bond issue... never? I honestly can't imagine it would get turned down. For example, the whole fairgrounds area is entirely devoid of sidewalks. Huge swaths of arterials like New Bern and Atlantic lack them. There are literally hundreds of 1 or 2 block gaps all over the place. Some streets in and around downtown desperately need an overhaul. This would fix ALL OF THE ABOVE.

[ChiefJoJo]

Wonder when the last time Raleigh had a sidewalk bond issue... never? I honestly can't imagine it would get turned down. For example, the whole fairgrounds area is entirely devoid of sidewalks. Huge swaths of arterials like New Bern and Atlantic lack them. There are literally hundreds of 1 or 2 block gaps all over the place. Some streets in and around downtown desperately need an overhaul. This would fix ALL OF THE ABOVE.

It funny you mention funding sidewalks. Recall that article about Capital Blvd a couple of weeks back? City staff and councilors were talking about how little funding there is for sidewalks in the city budget.

Remember, this is a parks bond, so we're talking about funding recreation facilities rather than transportation facilities (bike lanes and sidewalks). We all know there is some overlap, but there is a technical difference in the function. It's probably more realistic to think of the Neuse River Greenway as a large linear park, as well as a link in the Mountains To Sea Trail, rather than a transportation project.

I agree there is a need for sidewalk improvements, but I wonder if they have the cache of parks in the minds of the voting public. Maybe some actual bike and ped transportation money could be set aside if the local funding options bill passes the legislature or the next road bond issue.

[orulz]

Found this about the contract being awarded for the house creek greenway:

http://www.raleigh-nc.org/portal/server.pt...020-111936.html

Noticed that 30% engineering drawings for the House Creek greenway have been on the City of Raliegh website since October.

This looks to be a pretty basic trail, compared to the rather extravagant Reedy Creek Greenway.

The trail will connect to the *east* end of the Reedy Creek Greenway bridge over the beltline.

It will cross Lake Boone at grade, just east of the off/onramps for the Inner Beltline - currently an unsignalized intersection. Hopefully they plan on at least adding a signal there. The trail will cross the Beltline on the Glen Eden bridge, utilize a small, existing segment of greenway off of Glen Eden. The trail and won't connect directly to the Crabtree Creek trail.

The lack of a direct connection to the Crabtree Creek greenway is a bit disappointing, but that's not a deal breaker. I'm a little upset about the at-grade crossing of Lake Boone. People tend to speed pretty severely going down that hill.

There will be a parking lot at The Palms apartment complex, on some low-lying city owned land that used to house apartment buildings that got flooded out.

[ChiefJoJo]

I rode my bike over the weekend along the Rocky Branch Greenway near NCSU and then over to Meredith and the NCMA park greenway past House Creek and on to Umstead Park. If you ever get a chance to ride that strech, it's really nice and potentially will be even better once the segment of Rocky Branch is done at NCSU between Morrill Rd and Dan Allen Dr. then you'll have a nearly continuous trail from just south of downtown thru Dix to NCSU over to Meredith, to NCMA and Umstead.

Does anyone know the schedule on the Rocky Branch segment near the NCSU intramural fields?

[orulz]

Does anyone know the schedule on the Rocky Branch segment near the NCSU intramural fields?

According to this document, Phase III should have gone to bid on June 1. Completion is expected on Feb. 15, 2008.

You can see a draft of the design for this segment here. It will use the existing pedestrian underpass beneath Morril.

[JeffC]

You can see a draft of the design for this segment here. It will use the existing pedestrian underpass beneath Morril.

Is that the pedestrian tunnel that connects carmichael gym to what is now the under construction softball stadium/track? IIRC, that was a pretty shabby tunnel when I was in school there mid 80s...has it been upgraded?

[Jones_]

I rode my bike over the weekend along the Rocky Branch Greenway near NCSU and then over to Meredith and the NCMA park greenway past House Creek and on to Umstead Park. If you ever get a chance to ride that strech, it's really nice and potentially will be even better once the segment of Rocky Branch is done at NCSU between Morrill Rd and Dan Allen Dr. then you'll have a nearly continuous trail from just south of downtown thru Dix to NCSU over to Meredith, to NCMA and Umstead.

Does anyone know the schedule on the Rocky Branch segment near the NCSU intramural fields?

And if the House creek trail ever gets built via crabtree most of the north raleigh trails up through Shelly Lake will be linked too.

[RaleighRob]

The new city council makeup in Raleigh has had it's first big impact. It's pretty much official now---Horseshoe Park will remain a "nature park" and not a developed community center.

Article: http://www.indyweekblogs.com/citizen/2007/...-a-nature-park/

[ChiefJoJo]

^ Man, that's awesome to hear. If you've ever been up there, it's a magnificent piece of land, and anyone with some elementary sense of place and nature would say it needs to be preserved--not developed. Koopman has already taken action clearly 180-degrees from developer-friendly Taliaferro, and also in support of the majority of citizens in the city and the NE district. I know there's a need for active recreation in that area, but there's got to be other sites available. I had heard that the 5401 North development (very close by) had reserved some land for school and a park. In speaking with Koopman prior to the election, I felt that he had a lot of promise and good ideas, but also that he would take time to listen as well. I think the city has it's best days ahead...

[Jones_]

This is great. I can tell you that this area is far removed from most people who "need" active recreation facilities....Ligon Mill Road is completely rural and other developed areas would be driving out of the CIty to get back down to Horseshoe. Any patch of land that says "for sale" could be used with sufficient impact fee money available to make a purchase. We should not have to rely on donated land to have land available for active use park facilities. A little forsight and teh City could have grabbed some land adjacent to teh CASL Soccer Center on Perry Creek (accross the river from Horseshoe)and combined efforts for a larger recreational effort with even canoe access into the Neuse the Horseshoe will still be incorporating I think.

[Pack52]

I *think* you can see the house creek greenway being built from the beltline... Lots of equipment out there...