Proposed bicycle highway between Raleigh and RTP gets boost from Wake commissioners
Wake County commissioners have thrown their support behind the eastern section of the Triangle Bikeway, a planned paved trail for cyclists and pedestrians that could one day parallel Interstate 40 between Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
Commissioners voted recently to spend $1.4 million on final designs and environmental studies for the project’s Wake section. Meanwhile, the Research Triangle Foundation has put up $485,000 for the same work on the trail in Research Triangle Park.
That’s still an estimated $3.3 million short of what’s needed to get ready for construction of the trail between Raleigh and RTP, according to Sig Hutchinson, chair of the Wake commissioners. U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is seeking to have Congress provide the rest of the money next year, but Senate budget writers haven’t committed to that yet.
Hutchinson conceived of the Triangle Bikeway several years ago to make it easier for people to ride to work on their bikes. A study completed last year identified a preferred route for the eastern section, following Wade Avenue, I-40 and N.C. 54 between the N.C. Museum of Art and the Hub and Boxyard in RTP.
The 16-foot-wide paved trail would connect greenway systems in Raleigh, Cary and RTP with large employers, including campuses for Apple, Bandwidth and the state Department of Health and Human Services, as well as Lake Crabtree County Park and Umstead State Park.
“This corridor is the connective tissue that ties the entire region together,” Hutchinson told fellow county commissioners last month. “This is absolutely huge in terms of its ability to get people from one point to the next.”
The federal money for designs and environmental studies is not assured; an earlier attempt by U.S. Rep. David Price to persuade Congress to pay for them failed. Hutchinson told commissioners if that happens again he would return to ask the county to provide the remaining $3.3 million.
The board voted to provide the initial $1.4 million, using money generated by bonds issued for greenways, approved by voters in 2018. The commissioners’ vote was unanimous, though Vickie Adamson expressed misgivings, saying she thought the timing was wrong.
“We have citizens who are really struggling, and we’re building transportation corridors,” she said.
Adamson also questioned why local governments and other organizations have expressed support for the project but that only Wake is putting up money for the final designs and environmental studies.
“In my world, how we know you’re our partner is you don’t send us a letter, you write a check to help pay for it,” she said. “That’s how I know you’re a partner.”
Hutchinson said he was confident that local, state and federal governments, as well as private donors, would help pay for construction of the bikeway, which he described as a $50 million project. But he said it was important for the county to get the bikeway ready to go.
Other commissioners said they were excited about the project. Maria Cervania said a growing number of people are looking to ride bikes for both recreation and as a means of transportation to parks, work or social gatherings.
“That’s exciting for a lot of people,” Cervania said. “And we have to know that this is what a fair amount of our people want.”
The bikeway would follow the highway
The Wake County section of the Triangle Bikeway would mostly be built within the I-40 right-of-way. The N.C. Department of Transportation has been involved in planning and says there’s room for the bike trail separated by a fence a safe distance from traffic.
The trail would depart from the interstate near I-540 and follow N.C. 54 into RTP. That’s so the trail would pass GoTriangle’s planned regional bus center and a potential commuter rail station near the intersection of N.C. 54 and Miami Boulevard, as well as come closer to companies in the park, said Iona Thomas of McAdams, a firm that help develop the preliminary designs.
The bikeway would connect with 18 miles of greenway trails that course through RTP. Most of the trails are old and narrow, and the Research Triangle Foundation plans to bring them up to modern greenway standards over the coming decade, said Travis Crayton, the foundation’s planner.
“Having the Triangle Bikeway as a spine to connect to that network makes it not just a recreation opportunity for folks working in Research Triangle Park but also creates a transportation opportunity,” Crayton said. “We’ve learned so much from other regions that have invested in greenways as transportation corridors and amenities and the benefits that those have brought those regions, and we think it makes a ton of sense for our region as well.”
The bikeway may eventually continue west along I-40, then follow N.C. 54 into Chapel Hill. Plans for the western stretch are less detailed, and local officials in Durham and Orange counties are not prepared to get the project started there.
Thomas at McAdams said completing the final designs and environmental studies for the eastern segment could take 18 to 24 months, once the funding is lined up. That would put the start of construction sometime in 2024 at the earliest, assuming money is available.
Thomas and McAdams may not be involved in creating the final designs; the work would be put out to competitive bid and could go to another firm.
But that wouldn’t diminish her enthusiasm for the bikeway.
“If you were visiting this area, and you get off an airplane and you’re sitting in traffic on I-40 and you see people zipping by on e-bikes, it tells you a lot about our region,” she said. “I think it’s a way for us to kind of future-proof our region, continue to attract great companies that want these kinds of facilities for quality of life for their employees.”
This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 10:48 AM.
