Last year the state Department of Transportation extended a greenway along Reedy Creek Road from Blue Ridge Road to the park's southeast corner. DOT also paved two gravel roads, Reedy Creek and Trenton, that meet there at the park's edge.

The new greenway was a terrific, scenic service that expanded the world for people on foot and on bicycles. But along the way, these improvements also gobbled up a parking area that other Umstead lovers -- people who come by car -- had enjoyed for years.

The paving machine's new target is Graylyn Drive, on the north side of the 5,579-acre state park in West Raleigh.

This time the benefits of asphalt will be more modest, and the ill effects will be worse for some of the 600,000 people who visit Umstead each year.

Graylyn Drive is a spur off Ebenezer Church Road and Glenwood Avenue in West Raleigh. The first bit is paved, but most of it is gravel. The unpaved part serves three residences. It ends at the locked gate of a maintenance entrance to the park.

For years, on weekends and on workday mornings and afternoons, cyclists and runners would leave their cars on the shoulder of Graylyn Drive and slip around the gate into the park. On warm weekends, 100 cars would fill both sides of the road.

The lure was Umstead's network of bridle-bike trails, cushioned with finely crushed rock, just inside the Graylyn gate. The park doesn't open until 8 a.m., and the closing hour ranges from 6 p.m. this month to 9 p.m. at midsummer. But nobody gets in trouble for enjoying Umstead a little early or lingering a little late.

"I take a four-mile run after work," said Mitch B. Rosen, 52, who has been using Umstead's Turkey Creek Trail for 15 years. "I know I'll be in there a few minutes after the park closes, but it's no big deal."

Now, park lovers are banned from Graylyn.

A few weeks ago, DOT planted "No Parking" signs along both shoulders. The road was graded, the shoulders were sloped and seeded with grass, and the ditches were dug out. Graylyn Drive will be paved next spring.

Steve Halsey, DOT maintenance engineer for western Wake County, explained that those parked cars had ruined the drainage ditches, sending silt into the park nearby.

"We were having some erosion problems in the park itself," Halsey said. Paving the road will make it easier to take care of Graylyn and its drainage ditches in the future, he said.

Park officials learned of paving plans only after the work started.

"We didn't request it," said Scott Letchworth, Umstead superintendent. He pointed out that Umstead provides parking inside its gates, including one lot designated for horse trailers and cyclists near the Graylyn trails.

That parking lot is five miles from Graylyn by car, through Umstead's entrance road off Glenwood Avenue.

"It adds about 20 minutes to getting there and coming back, and a lot of it's on an uneven dirt road, which is not good for my car," said Molly Oshatz, 34, of Raleigh, who used to walk her dogs there in the morning. "I got a flat tire the first time I tried it. It's just not user-friendly."

Rosen was skeptical about DOT's need to improve drainage on Graylyn.

"I have never seen a problem of erosion on that road, even after Hurricane Floyd," Rosen said. "It's discouraging to see DOT seemingly act contrary to the best interests of so many people."

Paving Graylyn makes it more accessible for cars but will reduce traffic on the dead-end road. The parking ban probably will stay in place after the work is finished next spring, Halsey said.

"To keep the water draining, we're going to have to have shoulders that would facilitate getting water off the pavement," he said.

DOT plans in 2009 to pave a third road that provides convenient after-hours access to Umstead trails from nearby neighborhoods. Old Reedy Creek Road reaches the far-flung park's southwest corner from Cary.

But Old Reedy Creek Road is wider than Graylyn. After it is paved, there probably will still be room for parking.

"I don't anticipate that paving it will affect the way people are parking there now," Halsey said.