West Ellerbe Creek greenway I-85 spur planning to kick off, but don't look for construction anytime soon

When you stop at one of the maps posted at various points along Durham's North-South Greenway, you see fine renderings of a trail system only half-built. (Yes, it is possible to discover this the hard way, as I did upon first moving to the Bull City a few years back.)

Among the missing segments: the linkage between the West Ellerbe Creek greenway that bisects Watts-Hillandale south of the golf course, only to come to an unceremonious end at Guess Rd.

Handy if you're a university administrator whose TIAA-CREF has tanked and you need to hock those golf cufflinks and Rotary pins for gold at the pawn shops, or if you're hankering for Hog Heaven BBQ.

Not so handy if you want to continue on, as planned, to the North Pointe shopping center or up to Stadium Drive, where you can connect to the mainline of the trail and head to parks, North Durham, the Edison Johnson rec center or the Museum of Life and Science -- or if you're a North Durhamite looking for bike/ped access to the shopping center, NCSSM or Ninth Street.

There's no money to build it yet, but the work to at least plan the second phase of the West Ellerbe Creek greenway can move forward at last.

Just getting the dollars for this phase of the greenway has been a bit of a fight, and comes after a couple of years of lobbying by the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association.

The City Council's consent agenda on Monday night included $235,000 in funding with Raleigh's Stewart Engineering to completely design this segment of trail, down to the construction documents needed to put the project out to bid.

But as noted above, the actual cash to build the trail doesn't exist -- so just because the trail will exist on paper, that doesn't mean the funding will be there yet to construct the asphalt path.

One big cost-saver: the I-85 reconstruction project a couple of years back already stubbed out a pedestrian culvert under the interstate for the trail, something that otherwise would have been a deal-killer for the project, since we'd imagine a bridge crossing 85 would have been at least as expensive as the remainder of the trail combined.

Funding for the planning work comes from parks & rec impact fees; the trail plan will happen in conjunction with planning for a stream restoration effort that's itself funded by state Clean Water Management dollars.

Comments

[Jeremy T]

Yeah, not getting my hopes up.

The existing trail system in north Durham is so dilapidated as to be virtually impassable on a road bike. Why bother building trails to begin with if you don't have any intention of maintaining them?

[Todd P]

Another cost saver for the project is that when the North Point S/C was built (Home Depot, Costco, etc.) the developer had to set aside an easement for the trail. This also includes the apartment complex north of Costco on Broad St.

Unless the DeHavens storage folks try to stand in the way, that gets the trail from I-85 almost all the way to Stadium Drive and should save the city a lot of money and time.

Negotiating and buying trail easements can take years, and some property owners refuse to sell no matter what. This forces the city to go the eminent domain route, which no one likes.

[Dan Clever]

@Todd
You are correct that acquistion of corridor for trails is a big headache. Luckily, in the case of the West Ellerbee Creek extension, easements have been acquired for all of the corridor. A few pieces were already publicly controlled, I believe.

As for DeHavens, they are on the other side of the creek from where the trail will go. After the trail goes under I-85, it will follow the retaining wall in front of Bed,Bath and Beyond. It will cross Northpointe Blvd and go next to the retaining wall in front of Costco.

[Todd P]

Dan - That's great news that the entire trail corridor has been acquired.

Do you know if the crossing of Northpointe Blvd will be under the bridge for the creek, or at street level? If at street level, there better be a plan for a pedestrian signal. With all of the turning traffic in and out of various parts of the shopping center, crossing on foot there could be a real hazard.