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Current Projects
Northern Wake Landfill It has been a real pleasure working with Wake County and the OBS design team on this master plan project. Instead of being closed out of the loop TORC was invited to participate, listened to when we made suggestions, given a tour of the site and the draft master plan shows a significant increase in bike trails. This will be an interesting project with a lot of unusual issues due to the fact that even after closure the landfill is a living thing with lots of monitoring, gas extraction, etc. There are also 180,000 residents within a 5 mi radius of the landfill so there are many demands for this piece of land including a school, athletic fields,aquatic center and playgrounds. The designers have included about 5 mi of singletrack but it looks to us like that can be expanded along the stream buffers and on the back cell to increase the mileage. Thanks for your support of TORC - without the strength of membership and the organization of the club we would not be able to accomplish very much. Also, this is long term planning which is how it normally works with government agencies. Don't pull up to the scales next week asking for the bike trails! But the fact that TORC was involved was good exposure and hopefully it will open more doors for us. Forest Ridge I'm afraid I haven't been doing a good job keeping everybody updated on the meetings of this planning committee due to the fact that work has been taking up too much of my time the last few weeks, but I have good news to report. I attended the two meetings of the committee prior to this week's meeting on Wednesday, and Sig Hutchinson filled in for me at that meeting. I made what was supposed to be a five minuted presentation on behalf of TORC and the mountain biking community on 9/29. After I gave them the background info on TORC/SORBA I passed around some pictures of trails from the mountains that showed bench cuts on steep mountain sides to illustrate how the many steep slopes on the property would be ideal for trails. These steep slopes had been labeled on the site plan as being unuseable for recreational purposes. I discussed the IMBA standards for trailbuilding, volunteers from TORC to help design, build and maintain trails, the possibilities for grant monies to defray costs of construction and bike patrols as contributions that we would be able to bring to the table should mountain bike trails be included in the new park. I also pointed out that the city had no parks that included dedicated singletrack trails for bikes, and that most of the residents options to ride were either on illegal trails or county/state parks. My allotted five minutes ended up being fifteen minutes due to the interest and questions from members of the committee. After my presentation the committee proceeded to select the uses they wanted to see in the park and to prioritze them. MTB trails came out in the top ten out of over thirty proposed uses. I left the meeting feeling very positive about the prospects for a significant amount of trail in the new park plan. Sig called me yesterday to report on the master concept plan that was presented to the committee on Wednesday night. Not only did MTB trails make the plan, but they are through a large portion of the whole park. I haven't seen a copy of the plan yet, but I will post the website address as soon as the plan is on the city's website. We are still a ways from the park being built, but the prospects are quite good that trails will be included in the first phase of construction due in part to the low cost to build and the volunteer labor that we will provide the city. This park is a landmark decision for the mountain biking community in Raleigh. We will finally have legal singletrack in a city park, and it will have enough mileage to satisfy all skill and endurance levels of riders. I would imagine that the possibilities are good that this will be a trail system to rival those at Beaverdam at the other end of Falls Lake. This success, along with the North Wake Landfill site and ongoing negotiations with Harris Lake, New Light, Trenton Road and others shows how successful we can be with TORC. The consultants and officials at both these projects were impressed with our organization and professionalism in dealing with the planning process. We will be successful working the system now and in the future as long as we continue to get the kind of support we've had from you so far. But we can't rest on our laurels, and there are plenty of opportunities for new volunteers to step forward to help secure new trail in the future. We've lost or are losing: IBM, parts of Centennial, Regency and Atlantic Avenue in Wake county alone this year. The full or partial closure of so many miles of trails this year underscores the need to keep lobbying for legal access to as many miles of trail as we can get before all the green spaces are developed. I hope to see you all at our next meeting. Bill Camp |
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