Now you can ride the greenway from Lassiter Mill to Knightdale or Falls dam uninterrupted!
A nice diversion my wife and I made the other day is when you get to N. Raleigh Blvd on the Crabtree greenway is to ride .5 miles west on Crabtree Blvd to Gateway plaza and Mordecai Beverage company.
If youâre going to write about the draft master plan, you should also summarize it.
The plan isnât just about new greenways, but also how to make them useful as something more than just nature trails. It suggests upgrading existing greenways to fit into one of three categories:
Oak City Trails: well-lit, direct connections between major destinations like the Rocky Branch and Crabtree Creek greenways. Also supports denser, walkable âtrail-oriented developmentsâ.
Neighborhood trails: local paths connecting neighborhood destinations to bigger trails, like the Spring Forest trail.
Scenic trails: what you probably think of when you hear âgreenwaysâ like the Neuse River trail.
After picking out which greenways should be updated (and how all greenways should also have set expectations, such as regular seating and maintenance), the report also recommends new projects. These are heavily centered around building more places to cross 440 and 540 on foot.
This is what I just picked up from skimming the first 80 pages, so I probably missed interesting details if there were any in the detailed recommendations.
Because it shouldnât be there, yet. As of now, thatâs still nothing more than our communityâs headcanon. But this plan mainly combines and enhances recommendations that were already made in previous planning studies; itâs 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 regionâs transit plan). The city canât take the Artery seriously enough to add it to shorter-term plans like this greenway study until we can do that and prove itâs worth the cost. Thereâs a lot of steps we have to take before it can end up in plans like these.
And itâs 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.
Thatâs parallel-ish to half of it. The most important part of that idea was to decommission Norfolk Southernâs underused tracks, including the part that cuts through Dix Park.
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
The recommendation was to make it part of CAMPOâs 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.
Oh whoops, I misremembered the acronym. Thanks for the correction
I think itâll be impossible to do without the railroadsâ support, too, by definition. Otherwise, as soon as we demonstrate the value of the land theyâre sitting on, NS would have all the leverage in the world to just sell to the highest commercial developer.
âŠand itâd be hard to make a case for this without commuter rail becoming a thing, huh. I love this chicken-or-egg problem
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! You really wish that theyâd gone with that alignment from the beginning, but Iâm very glad to finally have the trail unobstructed again. The whole thing is absolutely great.
On the east side of Capital, thereâs another path turning to the north thatâs 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?
⊠or high speed rail, or some sort of change in freight operations or ownership of the linesâŠ
I donât think that thereâs 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 weâll try to come along for the ride.
Oh and what if the ART in ARTery stood for âAll-Raleigh Trailâ?
Final draft is out. Hereâs 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
Thatâs 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. Canât 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.
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 arenât 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 Countyâs greenway study a few years back, it doesnât 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.