Would love to see it turned into a pathway lined with wildflowers
23 Likes
Typically you don’t want trees growing on top of your water mains because the roots can damage the main and it doesn’t allow for easy maintenance. Fingers crossed for a good walk path though! It could be really pretty for a little wooded stroll (we don’t get many of those in downtown).
8 Likes
I mean… this leads directly to where that hypothetical “Land bridge” connecting Dix and Pullen would/could go… why not just go a LITTLE less ambitious and do a pedestrian bridge over Western from Pullen to this new “path” ???
4 Likes
Wow Jake could learn a thing or two from your artistry
2 Likes
If @Deekay93 did the decking/path in ALL CAPS it would be a fusion of the 2 styles.
1 Like
Hi, Dix Park has a Wikipedia page now! Check it out, and if you’re into editing Wikipedia you’re welcome to help improve the page.
8 Likes
I don’t who has editing privileges, but Dix is NOT 3 miles from downtown. I just pulled the distance from the Capitol on google maps, and it’s barely a mile southwest.
1 Like
everyone has edit privileges. so i fixed.
also, isn’t umstead technically an urban park? it’s way bigger than dix
1 Like
Hi, thanks for checking out the page, and for the improvements!
In terms of the distance, I think the 3 miles may have come from the 2.5 miles in this article: A Complete Guide To Dorothea Dix Park: Raleigh's Urban Oasis | This Is Raleigh Perhaps it’s a difference between measuring as the crow flies and driving to an entrance?
On the claim of being the largest urban park, that may a case where exact wording is important. I think one could say that Dix Park is Raleigh’s largest urban park. Umstead is a state park, so although Umstead is in Raleigh, it isn’t Raleigh’s. Also, for those who classify parks, an urban park is usually a landscaped park like Dix rather than a park in a more natural state like Umstead. I think your current wording is fine, but also wouldn’t be surprised if the claim to being the largest works its way back in there as the page continues to evolve.
Thanks again for engaging!
4 Likes
It looks like if you just type in Dix Park to Raleigh on Google Maps, it’s about 2 miles from the center of the park to the center of downtown.
If you look up a custom point from an entrance at the corner of the park to the edge of downtown (I picked near Red Hat in this case), it’s more like 0.5 miles.
s
2 Likes
I measured as the crow flies from the Capitol to the leading edge of the park. It’s about a mile.
As the crow flies, 3 miles SW of the Capitol puts you either at the far western side of Lonnie Poole golf course or somewhere on I-40.
That said, it’s much closer to the closest point of the actual downtown boundary.
1 Like
When I think of “urban park” i think of Central Park in NY or Centennial Park in Atlanta that don’t have parking lots. You sort of wander into them as you walk through downtown urban areas and suddenly “Whoa what a nice park.”
In my view, our “urban parks” in Raleigh are Moore Square and Nash Square. Not Chavis or Pullen or Dix which are more destination parks with most people arriving by, well let’s just say most didn’t walk there. I know some folks hyperventilate at the fact so many people drive to everything in the Triangle (just as the NYC Covid-refugee girl who had no idea what she was getting into when she moved here LOL).
Dix is huge and definitely “near” but not IN downtown. Most of Dix is every bit as far away as Downtown South will ever be, and there was lots of talk on here that DTS is “not downtown.” (Assuming it ever gets built). Sure the CLOSEST FRONT GATE is downtown adjacent, but i wouldn’t say that means the park is downtown at all.
Pullen is right off a busy thoroughfare. Umstead is a huge state park nestled between a freeway, a very busy medium-large commercial service airport, and a highway. I wish we had a centennial type of park situation but we have to make what we have work somehow. And I don’t think that includes gimmicks like charilifts or gondolas.
This idea would be a maintenance hassle for sure, but it’d be cool if somehow (since DIx is all uphill from the entrance closest to downtown) they did something like san diego zoo has, which is a very long uphill moving sidewalk (like the kind that are always breaking down at RDU). They have much better year-round weather at San Diego of course, but anything to draw people into and up the hill to encourage walkability by more people would be great. And aside from my concerns about maintenance, such a system is bound to be much less expense than a gondola. No staft for loading/unloading required to be paid or to show up; just maintenance. Probably have to cover it due all the 
branches and acorns that’d be falling on it.
Not sure what the precise definition of an urban park is, But no way would I consider Umstead an urban park.
For Dix, I think it is just a matter of time. IIRC the city has said in the past it wanted Dix Park to have a “hard edge” with dense development right up against the park.
There is a long way to go, but this “hard edge” has started with the north end of Lake Wheeler (Weld, Row/Rockway) and the south end (Maywood and Mercury) will probably follow suit. I wouldn’t be surprised if the state-owned land across Western (Central Prison and the Governer Morehead school) get sold and redeveloped eventually simply due to increasing land values
And here’s NCSU’s vision for Centennial campus
12 Likes
not arguing one way or another, just pointing out umstead is on this list
though that probably includes all parks within a city limits, the broadest definition of urban
This is only tangentially related other than it being a hindrance to Dix access from Centennial campus, but Centennial Parkway might be the most overbuilt road in Raleigh. I guess the 90s were a different time but I have no clue what they were thinking, crosswalks at intersections are legitimately like 160ft wide with all sorts of sliplanes, feels like they didn’t consider pedestrians at all
6 Likes
I’m not 100% on this, but wasn’t Central Park in NYC pretty agrarian (i.e. not urban, and certainly not in it’s current form) when it was built too? I can’t seem to find great pictures from 1860 when they started, must not have had drone cameras around then.
4 Likes
Yes. People complained it was so far out of town no one would use it. The first big apartment building along side the park was called the Dakotas because it felt that fair away.
2 Likes
Since we’re talking about Urban Parks, I would add the NCMA park to the list. If the land around the Lenovo Center is developed in a manner similar to North Hills and if the land next to the new DHHS is developed in a similar fashion then it would have to be considered an urban park. At 164 acres it’s nearly 100 acres larger than Pullen Park.
4 Likes