Preservation in the News

Wade Rawlins, Staff Writer

Supporters of trails and greenways are pitching six North Carolina projects, including two in the Triangle, to state transportation planners as top priorities for federal stimulus funds.

Supporters said the projects, all ready to be built, would enhance a growing network of footpaths and greenways that includes the Mountains-to-Sea Trail from the Smokies to the Outer Banks, the 330-mile North Carolina section of the East Coast Greenway from Maine to Florida and the Carolina Thread Trail, a regional trail system near Charlotte that will eventually link 15 counties in North Carolina and South Carolina.

The projects would take $8.1 million in stimulus funds and bring matching funds from local and state governments. They'll compete with a list of $26 million in other requests for greenway, sidewalk and pedestrian projects submitted by municipalities and local planning groups for an estimated $22 million in stimulus money directed to North Carolina for the purpose.

The Triangle projects include extending the Neuse River Greenway nearly eight miles from Falls Lake Dam to the WRAL soccer fields in northern Wake County and building a pedestrian bridge over Lick Creek near Falls Lake in Durham County. Both projects are links in the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

The estimated cost of the Neuse greenway section is $6.5 million. Federal funds would pay half, and the city of Raleigh would provide the rest. The project involves building seven bridges of 30 to 60 feet each over tributaries of the Neuse River and paving a 10-foot-wide path for use by pedestrians and bicyclists. It would link to a completed section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail at Falls Lake Dam and be part of a 28-mile greenway that Raleigh has been acquiring land to build by 2012.

In Durham County, a 100-foot steel bridge over Lick Creek at Falls Lake in Durham County would connect two pieces of the Mountains-to-Sea trail into a 40-mile continuous stretch through the Triangle. The total project cost is $225,000, and the state has already set aside $75,000 for it.

Tom Norman, director of the DOT's Division Of Bicycle And Pedestrian Transportation, said DOT staffers are reviewing which of the proposed projects are truly designed and could be put out for bids and contracted within 120 days. He said they would submit their list of recommendations to DOT senior management by the end of the week.

Other recommended projects include:

* $2 million to build a 3.5-mile section of the Cross-City Greenway in Wilmington.

* $1.25 million for a two-mile section of the Toby Creek Greenway in Charlotte connecting the UNC-Charlotte campus to a residential area and shopping center.

* $625,000 for the initial 1.5-mile phase of an urban trail that will eventually circle downtown Greensboro on abandoned rail corridor.

* $850,000 for a section of the Carolina Thread Trail from downtown Gastonia to the Highland Rail Trail.