Raleigh Greenway Plan Update

It looks super fast too! Just look at that incline! :face_with_monocle:

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I have been on this trail on my bike and yes you ride the brakes down that roller coaster.

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Nice - Been waiting on this trail to connect to Umstead. Any word on timing for the rest of it?

Says October https://raleighnc.gov/projects/crabtree-creek-west-trail

I was curious myself and didn’t see anything from the other side. :frowning:

However I did also manage to get photos from the retail spaces at GlenLake.

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Parks, Recreation, and Greenways Advisory Board Chair discussed this at the BPAC meeting on Monday 8/21. Starts at 1:04:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8nJ8oqSw2c&t=3878s

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first time up here

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I always have the overgrown-toddler urge to spit on cars as they pass by beneath lmao

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This level of congestion is why I don’t cycle (for fitness) on the greenways. I would be forever frustrated having to dodge pedestrians, children and dogs on leashes. It’s too bad because I’d like a safer place to use my road bike at speeds that are higher than what is permitted on greenways.

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This was during a group ride, there were probably 100 of us and once we got moving we were really moving. But I understand what you mean.

i have seen bicke clubs at very dangerous speeds on the greenway near the neuse…scaring the old folk speeds - they are mixed use and not for club time trials level stuff. i thought some years back clubs met outside of city limits and did regular 100 milers starting early

I’m curious to see what they discuss today in committee. You can watch at 4pm.

During the October 24, 2023 Growth and Natural Resources Committee Meeting, staff will give a presentation on the status of the implementation of recommendations identified in the Capital Area Greenway Master Plan Update, of which was adopted in April 2022. The presentation will cover the background on the planning process, overview of the recommendations and the Plan’s implementation, including an update on the Neighborhood & Community Connections Program.

http://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=CWSHQR499FC2

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Noticed that Cary’s website has a page about the Walnut Creek greenway
https://www.carync.gov/recreation-enjoyment/parks-greenways-environment/greenways/walnut-creek-greenway
This would go from downtown Cary behind Fenton and Cary Towne Center, then along I-40 to South Hills Mall. The creek itself continues to Lake Johnson, through Centennial Campus, to the south edge of DTR and beyond towards Garner.

I’m bitter about this because construction was proposed at some point when I was a child; I told my parents to go to the public hearing, they said it went badly, and nothing ever happened.

Raleigh shows the connection between Lake Johnson and South Hills (via the Buck Jones Rd bridge over I-40) as a long-term project. This has been on planning maps since the OG greenway plan in 1976; it’s basically the last stretch needed to complete a 40-mile “Major Loop B” around Raleigh.

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Completely irrelevant, but I love the Country Western font they used for “MAJOR LOOPS” - sounds like an old slapstick comedy/Western character name :cowboy_hat_face:

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While Cary has shown that they are not afraid to bust a few kneecaps and use eminent domain to obtain easements to build greenways, some segments of what they plan are probably going too far.

IMO the segments circled in red here are either badly compromised on-street alignments, or require too much in the way of easements. The segments in green are probably feasible and will make for an awesome greenway. The part north of there - I really don’t know. Probably a lower priority, if I were to guess.

On a related note, years ago I heard that there was a tunnel put in place under Cary Town Center Blvd when it was built, in anticipation of this greenway. A few years ago I went exploring (starting from the cross country course at WakeMed) and found that tunnel. It’s long, and narrower and the ceiling is lower than greenway tunnels that are built today - but it’s definitely there! I guess you could say that “suburban spelunking” - mostly finding and exploring built but unused/unconnected pedestrian tunnels, and sometimes big, oversized stream culverts - is a bit of a hobby for me. There are quite a few of them, if you know where to look!

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There is a portion of this greenway already built behind Fenton. As the next phase gets built more of the greenway will also get constructed. It currently dead ends at the trailer park to the west which is supposedly going to be sold and closed down. I am sure that will eventually lead to connecting the trail to Maynard.

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Raleigh was ahead of the curve with its greenway network, which provides non-auto spine routes for many in suburban locations. The next phase is to create connections between the greenways and activity centers. That’s something that a proposed zoning text change would require:

Weigh in until Jan 22!

Reminds me that the best transportation plan is a land use plan (yet again) - from Slate, about how even in suburban contexts people who are near things drive less, often because they have actual travel choices (like walking and biking):

In Dallas–Fort Worth, the country’s fourth-largest metro, about 1 in 4 residents lives within 3 miles of five different “activity centers,” the Brookings researchers’ term for those busy spots. Another 1 in 4 residents has just four “activity centers” within 7 miles of home. Each year, a household in the second group drives 15,000 more miles than a household in the first. Moving from one part of the suburbs to another could save a typical driver $1,000 a year, hundreds of hours of driving, and thousands of pounds of CO2 emissions… “You have people in every metro within 3 miles of five activity centers,” said Adie Tomer, one of the report’s co-authors. “That’s a biking distance.” There’s a 15-minute city in suburbia too. You just need to redesign the streets.

Typically, the strategy for adding people to the city without adding traffic has been what’s called “transit-oriented development,” in which new buildings pop up along the fingers of the metropolitan train or bus network. This approach has some problems: For one thing, U.S. transit service is often quite bad. For another, in many cities, this policy amounts to corralling new residents along the busiest, loudest, most dangerous, and most polluted streets.

What this data suggests is that substantial reductions in driving could be achieved by a different policy: just putting more people within a few miles of stuff like malls, colleges, office complexes, and historic town centers. Currently, these parts of town account for just 1 in 3 residents of big U.S. metro areas. Adding new residents could take the form of what some planners call “stealth density,” in which housing types like duplexes and garage apartments are allowed to fill in suburban neighborhoods across the metropolis.

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Went over to the Knightdale Greenway today and was pleasantly surprised by new Greenway construction which will eventually connect all the way to downtown Knightdale. I found a photo of the alignment and I colored the portion, which is now paved, in red.

Also got one photo of the progress along North Smithfield Road:

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I biked over to Prime one Saturday. Was a very nice ride and of course great food. The proposed greenway section there would be awesome.

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Wait what? Knightdale has a downtown?

Went by the new Crabtree Creek West Suspension bridge and seems they have started construction on it again, as they said.


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