Triangle Greenways:
Like a Kid Again
By John Suddath
(from the Winter 2008 issue)
When I moved to Raleigh North Carolina eleven years ago, I drove my car to most places and didn’t think much about walking regularly. I had used public transportation in Washington, DC and walked regularly there getting to and from the bus stop or the metro station, but that wasn’t an option in the Triangle which had very limited service.
Then I had heart bypass surgery in October, 1999, and my cardiologist told me that I needed to get back to walking regularly. That’s when I discovered the greenway system and the miles of paved trails that would have been considered a super highway when the city was first built. I started out walking three times a week and then increased to five times and now do it every morning.
Twenty years before the healthy living and fitness boom the City of Raleigh started building hike and bike trails around its flood control reservoirs and along the many creeks. The system now has expanded to 56 miles and connects most of the length of Crabtree Creek from the west to the east and large portions along Walnut Creek as well as around Lake Lynn and Shelly Lake. Plans are to connect the network to Umstead State Park and to expand the trail along the Neuse River. Cary and Apex are also building trails and bikeways, and the Triangle will eventually become a section of the Mountains to the Sea Trail.
When I was a kid growing up in small towns of Central Texas, I either walked or rode my bicycle everywhere. Even when I got a driver’s license at 16, I still walked a lot even though I gave up my bicycle when we moved to Fort Worth because the city streets were too dangerous. When middle age started creeping up on me, I tried jogging but I lived in an area without jogging trails, and the sidewalks, curbs, and street crossings were risky. When my boss broke his ankle stepping off a curb, I quit and didn’t take up walking again for 20 years.
The current trend in urban design is to promote multi-use complexes that include offices, retail, and residential components so that folks don’t have to get in the cars just to go to the store or to work. Growing cities like Raleigh and its suburbs also are seeing a boom in downtown residential development with high rise condos sprouting up next to the office towers.
The recent rise to $4 gas is causing people and politicians to talk about alternatives to the automobile, and we’re seriously talking about public transit. You can put your bicycle on the front of a lot a Raleigh buses now so you can ride to and from a bus stop. Lots of southern cities are regretting that they tore up their streetcar tracks and are studying ways to get folks back out of their cars. We just can’t deal with all that traffic that is ruining the quality of life that attracted folks to the South in the first place. I don’t know that I will live long enough to see that built, but in the meantime I can enjoy my walks along the Raleigh greenways that take me back to a quieter, more peaceful, and seemingly rural way of life. I can forget for a time that I live in a big city and watch the rabbits and squirrels as I share my secret with an ever-growing number of joggers and cyclists.