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Charlotte Greenway Trails


CharlotteDave

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1 hour ago, jjwilli said:

Charlotte city council will vote on June 11th to contribute funds to the rail trail bridge over 277. Funding is coming from the city, county, NCDOT as well the private sector. First picture shows the future built out Greenway system around uptown.

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hopefully have an article going live one of these days lol

 

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  • dubone changed the title to Charlotte Greenway Trails

I love that this bridge has stayed in everyone's consciousness since being originally planned for the Blue Line.  They were actually going to cover the bridge in their art budget of the Blue Line, but as has been reminded recently, it got value engineered out of the Blue Line when construction costs rose.

 

Back then, I actually used to run on that bridge, beating the very easy to beat low-frequency historic trolley.  Back then, crossing South Blvd bridge was only possible on a small freeway-like shoulder or one of the very narrow sidewalks on Church or Tryon.    Of course, they rebuilt South and now have a protected trail and reconfigured Tryon and have a nice wide brick-look sidewalk and bike lanes.    The alternatives to this Rail Trail Bridge are plentiful. 

 

I think the main drivers for it are symbolic, mainly that it was a failure to deliver a proposed project that seemed certain at the time.   Then with the convention center building a Stonewall crossing to the roof park over Whole Foods, it seems an extra-clear omission to lack that bridge.  

 

I'm hoping the bridge starts to reduce some of the obsession we have had with this section of 277.  We have had so many proposals for reducing the impact of the freeway between SouthEnd and Uptown in this area, but at some point we need to look at the far worse separations where crossing 277 cannot be done with any mode for more than half a mile.    The Euclid - Alexander bridge helps reduce the 1/3 mile section where you can't cross to Dilworth, but luckily seems to remain in some long range plans.    A big gap is the NCMF and northern end of Irwin Greenway, where you can't cross 77 or even cross into the cemetery to get to the Music Factory.   Luckily they seem to have a plan to extend Irwin to the Hamilton Street bridge, but still no plan to cross over 77 to JC Smith. 

 

 

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On 6/5/2018 at 10:27 AM, jjwilli said:

Charlotte city council will vote on June 11th to contribute funds to the rail trail bridge over 277. Funding is coming from the city, county, NCDOT as well the private sector. First picture shows the future built out Greenway system around uptown.

Does anyone else remember back when city council was considering covering up I-277, between Uptown and what is now South End?  I'm not talking about a simple bridge, but about a quarter to a half mile of I-277 would have been covered with an urban park on top.  So if you were driving along I-277, you would drive into a tunnel underneath this park.  Imagine if they had pursued that idea; South End would truly be connected to Uptown.  It was about 25 or 30 years ago that they were talking about doing this, but I suppose they decided it was too expensive or had other priorities.

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We all know.   That is part of the obsession with this section I am talking about.   We have discussed park caps and development caps a lot on here. 

 

It is fun to theorize, and if any part of the freeway would warrant a cap it would be this.  I just think let's wait till the actual land uptown and in Southend is developed before we start all that.  

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8 minutes ago, dubone said:

We all know.   That is part of the obsession with this section I am talking about.   We have discussed park caps and development caps a lot on here. 

 

It is fun to theorize, and if any part of the freeway would warrant a cap it would be this.  I just think let's wait till the actual land uptown and in Southend is developed before we start all that.  

I just found this article from 2008, which says the city council began considering this idea in 2000.  But  I could just about swear I was hearing talk of a cap in the late '80s or early '90s.  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article9000260.html

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Creating an uptown icon was the bold goal of meetings this week between city leaders and a national engineering firm.

Standing in a room filled with drawings and diagrams, engineers Thursday spelled out two possible visions for redeveloping a coveted piece of uptown real estate.

Both plans called for a cap over Interstate 277 and the creation of a “central celebration area” that would serve as a gathering place for people downtown – something city planners have long wanted to see.

City officials seemed pleased with the work unveiled at the meeting. Still, most admitted that any such plan was a long way from becoming a reality.

“This is still very much in the blue sky stage,” said Danny Pleasant, the Charlotte Department of Transportation's interim director. “It is a compelling idea and it'll probably get done someday. Now, if that day is five years from now, or 10, we can't say.”

The recent redesign of I-277 left about 12 acres of available land just off the highway, on the southwest side of uptown. The five parcels sit in an area next to the NASCAR Hall of Fame and just a few blocks from Bank of America Stadium and Time Warner Cable Arena.

City officials are looking to redevelop the land and want to create an eye-catching, pedestrian-friendly part of town. Already three parcels are under contract, and officials expect the others to follow quickly.

Carving the land out of the highway cost about $26 million. The city paid $21 million. The state paid the rest. Selling all five parcels should net more than $60 million for the city, about $20 million of which will go toward the construction of the hall.

The most provocative part of the plan deals with capping I-277, an idea first backed by City Council in 2000.

The new proposals follow different paths. The first would cap an area between College and Church streets, building a park atop the new land. The park would become a civic destination, used for gatherings downtown.

This plan also includes a pedestrian bridge that crosses the highway in a circle and would pass by hotels on both sides of the highway.

The second proposal is slightly more ambitious. It would cap five blocks of the highway, creating a European-style boulevard on top, with stores and hotels on both sides. This plan also includes a civic gathering place, this time right beside Bank of America Stadium, currently the location of the Observer's parking deck.

The first plan would cost about $170 million. The second plan could cost as much as $300 million. Officials said those figures are in today's dollars and would increase over time.

Officials with HNTB, authors of the proposal, estimated that the city could pay for the plans with money earned from selling new parcels created by it.

Several cities have built highway caps with varying degrees of success. Seattle created one of the earliest when it built a park and convention center in the '70s that covered three city blocks and stretched across Interstate 5.

More recently Columbus, Ohio, spent about $7 million to build a 1-acre cap over Interstate 670. The Union Street cap, as it is known, has become a retail destination, leading other cities in Ohio to consider similar construction.

Jim Kimbler, Charlotte's transportation planner, said the proposals were interesting, but that officials had a lot of evaluating to do.

“This will take a lot of review,” he said.

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  • 5 weeks later...
23 hours ago, JoshuaDrown said:

Now we just have to get Brandywine to Tyvola done...

It will be quite amazing once this is complete.   Being able to ride / run from uptown to SP will be awesome.  But they REALLY need to get working on the Southpark neighborhood improvement plan.  So many apartments around the mall but the sidewalks from the mall to the greenway are complete sh!t.  If they build the Briar Creek Greenway from the HS to the Xtrail that would help. 

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Had the opportunity to check out this new segment last week.  It makes a big connection (and the on-street route between Brandywine to Tyvola isn't too terrible).  Now I can more easily ride from Uptown to Park Rd Park, etc., and soon will be able to ride all the way to I-485/Pineville area on a low-stress network.  Very exciting.

One of my favorite features of this new segment is its proximity to great mountain biking trails.  There are several access points/trailheads that connect to the Backyard Trails and mountain biking paths behind Marion Diehl Park.  I've read about cities like Bentonville, AR leveraging the excellent nearby recreational trails and connecting them to downtown via greenways.  This has resulted in a huge tourism boost with tons of dollars being spent in their downtowns.  Charlotte is getting their first taste of this with the Backyard Trails on XCLT Tyvola-Huntingtown Farms.  I hope there will be more to come!

 

IMG_20180704_102557.thumb.jpg.6ecc56d116dee291b1d02f8cf6304dcd.jpg

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^^ Now it BYT can get some actual signage for the trails...  One time went running in there and planned for 5m and ended up like doing 8m because I kept getting lost and going in circles.  Talked to other friends that run/bike the trails and they all said they same thing...getting lost is "normal".

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8 hours ago, Nick2 said:

If someone pays me, I'll go stand out there making tallys on a piece of paper

If you are standing at McMullen Creek greenway (from 51 to Rea), you might want to bring a few sheets of paper!   I have been running  around the south part of the city for 10 years and nothing compares to the stretch for the amount of people on a weekend (besides the rail trail).  But it is one of the few places with shade in the summer, beautiful in spring and fall, and abundant wildlife. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 6/5/2018 at 2:33 PM, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

hopefully have an article going live one of these days lol

 

I'm a few months late but excellent article about the Rail Trail bridge, Clayton! 

If the bridge eventually gets funded, do you think it should have inductive charging built into its foundation?  

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607902/the-case-for-building-roads-that-can-charge-electric-cars-on-the-go/     (Disregard the URL title, nobody in their right mind wants cars on the Rail Trail)

A few years ago nobody thought that electric scooters would explode onto the scene like they have today.  

We need to start thinking about Wireless Greenways with inductive charging that can power scooters, e-bikes, longboards, unicycles, etc.  Thoughts?

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Railtrail 2.0 construction today behind Atherton Mill:

F352CD96-BD32-4CEE-82AF-386DFE3D9291.jpeg

Very pleased to see this moving, it will significantly improve the flow of bikes and peds from Dilworth to E-W Station (Tremont and South is a crappy intersection for bikes, hopefully a signalized McDonald will be better).

As I snapped the photo it occurred to me that the railtrail is one of the most unambiguously successful urbanization projects the city has completed. Yet we have seen very little effort from the city to build an actual network of multiuse trails in order to improve quality of life for residents. The low hanging fruit here is connecting the trails we have (and should have). All of the trails (railtrail, LSC greenway and the Stuart Creek greenway) just peeter out once they touch uptown. Connecting them all together through uptown on a path that is pleasant for pedestrians and bikes (and scooters) would make our trail system much more useful, particularly to commuters. Something like the Indianapolis Cultural Trail would certainly be feasible through uptown -- if the city was willing to surrender some traffic lanes. Combine that with some new legs of multiuse trails to Elizabeth (through Independence Park), Plaza Midwood (no idea where it would run), Druid Hills / Tryon Hills (the unused section of rail that the Red Line is not running on), Ashley Park (can make an extension from Steward Creek) and we would have a kickass system.

While there is some noise about improving the trail system (uptown bike lanes, XCLT and the railtrail bridge over 277) all that is either moving super-slowly, just talk or ignores pedestrians. Based on the success of the railtrail I think there are few things the city could spend money on that would have a bigger impact -- I think we are seriously ignoring the lessons of the incredibly successful accident that is the railtrail. 

Indianapolis Cultural Trail:

image.thumb.png.580a5e2c28e2cb7132d02622072d5487.png

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The  ideas I have heard for connecting Plaza Midwood to uptown via urban trail are:

  • Bikeway on one of the the shoulders of Independence 
  • Underpass to Chantilly then connecting to Elizabeth

Of course the Parkwood bike lane project could be connected to a NorthEnd Rail trail...

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27 minutes ago, archiham04 said:

The  ideas I have heard for connecting Plaza Midwood to uptown via urban trail are:

  • Bikeway on one of the the shoulders of Independence 
  • Underpass to Chantilly then connecting to Elizabeth

Of course the Parkwood bike lane project could be connected to a NorthEnd Rail trail...

I know it' s not exactly a greenway, but I've often wondered, while sitting on Independence Blvd and staring at the empty bus lanes in the middle, why can't we put ramps at all the overpasses and allow bikes to use that space?  

ramp.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/28/2018 at 2:39 PM, Windsurfer said:

I know it' s not exactly a greenway, but I've often wondered, while sitting on Independence Blvd and staring at the empty bus lanes in the middle, why can't we put ramps at all the overpasses and allow bikes to use that space?  

ramp.jpg

They are actively in the middle of a project to convert those bus lanes to express toll lanes.  

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On 8/28/2018 at 2:10 PM, archiham04 said:

The  ideas I have heard for connecting Plaza Midwood to uptown via urban trail are:

  • Bikeway on one of the the shoulders of Independence 
  • Underpass to Chantilly then connecting to Elizabeth

Of course the Parkwood bike lane project could be connected to a NorthEnd Rail trail...

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2252508,-80.8223754,704m/data=!3m1!1e3

There is a creek tributary that goes from Alexander Park to Hawthorne on city property, with the potential for a connector to Clement or Hamorton.   

However, I think regardless of any greenway style or neighborhood bike routes, they ought to be making a complete street out of Central Ave, and of course a bridge over the railroad. 

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