Raleigh Greenway Plan Update

:100: summary skillz ! Some crucial info there for moving forward.
Now comes the dance for how to fund both maintenance and expansion…

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I don’t see The ARTery.

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it would be the purple line going north from the “#23”, right?

Because it shouldn’t be there, yet. As of now, that’s still nothing more than our community’s headcanon. But this plan mainly combines and enhances recommendations that were already made in previous planning studies; it’s not meant to be the jumping board for totally new ideas.

@orulz led a call with local planners about it a while back, and they said the first step to making the Artery a reality is to add it to our Metropolitan Transportation Plan (read: make it a part of our region’s transit plan). The city can’t take the Artery seriously enough to add it to shorter-term plans like this greenway study until we can do that and prove it’s worth the cost. There’s a lot of steps we have to take before it can end up in plans like these.

And it’s not just Raleighite leaders you have to convince, either, to make that happen. You have to repeat the onboarding process for Garner, NCRR, Norfolk Southern, CSX, and other local landowners, as well.

No, that’s the extension of West St. that was in the Capital Blvd. corridor plan.

EDIT: corrected acronym

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High priority is shown on the West St/Harrington St corridor from Dix to Wake Forest Rd-- wasn’t that essentially the route?

That’s parallel-ish to half of it. The most important part of that idea was to decommission Norfolk Southern’s underused tracks, including the part that cuts through Dix Park.

For those of y’all who are new, we have a thread specifically for that idea.

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At this point, the way I see it, the ARTery idea is kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something has to move on the RR side before anybody is even really willing to talk about it seriously.

Movement on any one of the below could be a catalyst for the next steps.

-CSX sale of S-line
-NS re-abandonment of Glenwood Yard
-Movement on commuter rail to Wake Forest
-Movement on High Speed Rail
-NS turning over more of their local operations (other than NCRR) to Coastal Carolina
-Somebody proposes a major development (beyond just a renovation) on the west side of West Street, forcing the issue on land acquisition for High Speed Rail

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The recommendation was to make it part of CAMPO’s Metropolitan Transportation Plan (not transit).

My read is that getting it on there will involve many stakeholders, and doing so without so much as consulting the railroads may be difficult or even hazardous.

A feasibility study on rail consolidation in Raleigh was basically what the planners said should probably be step #1 in the process.

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Oh whoops, I misremembered the acronym. Thanks for the correction :sweat_smile:

I think it’ll be impossible to do without the railroads’ support, too, by definition. Otherwise, as soon as we demonstrate the value of the land they’re sitting on, NS would have all the leverage in the world to just sell to the highest commercial developer.

…and it’d be hard to make a case for this without commuter rail becoming a thing, huh. I love this chicken-or-egg problem :upside_down_face:

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I had a chance to ride the new Capital Blvd bypass on the Crabtree Creek greenway, and I can confirm that it is open for business, and it looks great! :heart_eyes: You really wish that they’d gone with that alignment from the beginning, but I’m very glad to finally have the trail unobstructed again. The whole thing is absolutely great.

On the east side of Capital, there’s another path turning to the north that’s not finished but was being worked on literally as I rode by yesterday morning and appeared to be very close to completion as well. Does anyone know what that is? Is that just going to connect to more parking?

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… or high speed rail, or some sort of change in freight operations or ownership of the lines…

I don’t think that there’s any way to put enough juice behind the ARTery concept on its own merits to shake the status quo. Something else has to do the shaking and then we’ll try to come along for the ride.

Oh and what if the ART in ARTery stood for “All-Raleigh Trail”?

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Final draft is out. Here’s the email I received:

The Greenway Master Plan Final Draft is now available for viewing on the Greenway Master Plan project page. Endorsements of the document will be sought from the Greenway Master Plan Steering Committee, the Greenway Committee, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission and the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board in January of 2022. The Draft Plan will be presented to City Council during their February 15th, 2022 work session meeting with an anticipated adoption in early 2022. For more information on this project, please visit the Greenway Master Plan project

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That’s one heckuva summary doc. I ended up in the weeds in the appendixes here and my takeaways were wow, just wow on the anticipated costs for adding greenway sections. Can’t begin to fathom what the pedi-bridges over the beltline are going to cost in Midtown by the time we get through the surveys analysis on those in the year 2030.

It’s really great that we’re finally getting an updated greenway plan. This has been over 30 years coming.

Lots to scan through. This is what I immediately went and looked for:

Looks like they did a pretty decent job with prioritization. Big Branch is in the right place at #1, and a connection to OTB SE Raleigh is #2. After that, it prioritizes adding greenways in NE Raleigh where there aren’t any, which feels right. And many of the highest priority trails connect to existing greenways which builds a network. So, lots to like.

I do feel that #27 (Walnut Creek connection to Cary) and #40 (Connect Lake Lynn to Crabtree Greenway) should be prioritized higher than they are. In contrast to Wake County’s greenway study a few years back, it doesn’t look like their methodology prioritizes filling gaps. Based on the criteria put forth here, such as social equity, and access to existing greenways, things like the Crabtree West corridor to Umstead, or especially the planned improvements at Lassiter Mill, may not have been prioritized.

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I don’t see the Artery referenced anywhere.
:man_shrugging:t3:

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Yes! For purely selfish reasons I’m super glad to see the big branch route at the top.

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Is that section supposed to make it all the way up to Cedar Hills park / Spring Forest ?

Not sure. Hard to tell on the map with my phone.

Yeah me too.

That’s what it looks like to me.

Can you tell what the route would be? Would it be a new greenway along big branch?