Raleigh has one of the top Greenway systems for recreation / fitness. (IMO - comparing to the other places I have lived / visited). You could probably easily do 100+ mile ride on mostly nothing but greenways. That’s pretty incredible!
But, it’s severely behind on other things that hold it back.
Lack of connectivity to downtown / other places of interest. This makes it not very feasible for commuting.
Lack of marketing / branding. We have a great Greenway system - if you know about it. Let’s publicize it.
Lack of lighting on key sections limits it to daytime use. (not a problem this time of year, but when it gets dark at 6:00pm…)
They’re definitely aware of and working towards these things – it’ll just take time. Though the connections they’ve already built (Industrial Dr. for example) are fantastic!
Would love to see a main artery for biking feeding into the heart of the city. As it is, the current greenway on the south side is not direct enough. Hillsborough street will always be too busy to be viable. You can still bike, but not sure how you would do something safer with all the campus traffic and parking. Clark Avenue and Peace Street combined make a much quieter and direct shot into the heart of the city. These currently have bike markings, but biking on Clark is not something I feel particularly safe on with a bike currently. It zig zags a little around Brooks, but otherwise would be direct from Dixie Trail. If you then used a combination of Dixie and Lake Boone for dedicated lane, this would provide a lot of additional options to directly get into the city. This primarily addresses coming from the West. From the North, St Marys seems to be an option, but is a very busy street.
I feel safer cycling on Hillsborough street than Peace. There’s more traffic, but most of the way it’s slowed down by intersections, parking, crosswalks, etc.
Work going on under 440/Crabtree Creek Rd. There was work going on there tonight as well. I’m the type of person who bikes under at 10-11PM. I had one other photo from tonight, but I didn’t hold the phone still long enough (I thought I did).
I’ve been tempted to just snip a few branches there as well. I mean who would complain? Could be a nice guerilla urbanism activity a few of us could do.
I agree. The Clark/Peace stretch west of Glenwood is hilly, winding and narrow. There are lots of curb cuts and intersections that have some level of blindness to them for me to feel safe on a bike. The Clark section west of Oberlin also has a lot of cars parked in the street. IMO, Hillsborough is a much safer route with it being much straighter, flatter and wider for bike lanes.
This is also true for sidewalks. There are many impassable sidewalks downtown.
Why be guerilla about it? Couldn’t we ask the city if we could do it? Maybe that could shame the city into paying attention to them? There has to be some sort of guidance from the city about sidewalks and clearances to the two sides and above.
I’ve actually asked multiple city offices about doing some of the trimming and stuff myself before, so let me make a suggestion:
Don’t ask. Do.
For reasons that you can probably put together on your own whether you think they make any sense or not, it’s technically illegal. Would you get cited for it… depends on the location in question and your demographic profile, but, it’s not gonna land you in jail, it’s just fines.
Anyway, I talked to a couple different people in Transportation and was told that I should rely on See-Click-Fix and, if it’s really bad, a complaint to your city councillor. I talked to a couple different people in Parks & Greenways, and they said, well, if you were out for a walk or a ride on a sidewalk or greenway and you just happened to trim a branch or two it’s pretty hard to imagine anybody complaining or even noticing - but don’t call us and tell us where you’re going to do it.
Pretty much the same goes for doing things like planting flowers (or corn) in the greenway right of way, or removing invasive species. Officially: don’t do that because it’s illegal. Unofficially: don’t announce your intentions and work quickly and you’ll probably be fine.
I once parked at the gas station where Centennial meets Lake Wheeler Rd. and took my loppers into the Greenway and gathered about 25 stalks of bamboo for gardening stakes.
This is true. Years ago I was working up in New England and a coworker said he spent the weekend at the Big Dig construction site in Boston over the weekend. He just put in a hard had, his vest and grabbed a clip board and started walking around the site. Not one person stopped to question what he was doing.
Anybody know how to report a blocked bike lane? Somebody has placed a semi-permanent dumpster in the southbound lane of the northern portion of St. Mary’s. I encounter it daily as it’s the only safe biking route to downtown from North Hills. I’ve done a cursory search of the permit portal and didn’t find anything.
For a city that talks so much about alternative transportation, it really needs to start enforcing it’s own rules. Somebody is gonna get hit one of these days.
I know, it’s very frustrating and seriously hinders the adoption of the city’s stated goals.
I’m gonna pick on that portion of St. Mary’s North of it’s intersection with Glenwood, as I ride it almost daily. Nearly every time, I encounter vehicles, dumpsters, or yard debris blocking the bike lane. The neighborhood is exclusively $MM houses on large lots, ITB. They have plenty of space, and the means, to internalize the costs of storing their stuff on their property, but it instead becomes the public’s problem to deal with. I am generally more accepting of this kind of stuff in older neighborhoods with small lots, but it really irks me that the city lets some of it’s most privileged shunt their costs onto the rest of us.
Fines aren’t the answer if we want to actually eradicate it. Engineering solutions like bollards and curbs instead. I like the shorter bollards in DC and other places that don’t stand out as much as the tall ones we use and have the same effect. Hoping to see some of our existing lanes with bollards (i.e. West/Harrington) convert to curb-separated lanes as the city continues to iterate.
If we could just get google maps updated I think people would be surprised by the relative connectivity already. Were missing probably 50 miles of bikes lanes on google and that’s source of truth for a lot of people.
Bike Infrastructure Construction Alert 
