Category: Carolina Thread Trail

Why greenways matter

UNCC student Jamie Prince and her dog, Tolstoy

I took a brisk walk today on the Ruth G. Shaw Trail along the Toby Creek Greenway through the UNC Charlotte campus. It was part of my job. Really. I was taking photos of the greenway for an article we’ll be publishing, with luck this week. (Update: It’s now posted here.)

It was warm-ish for January, and as I walked to where the trail intersects with the Mallard Creek Greenway I saw runners, bicyclers, one skateboarder, and a woman with a child in a stroller. Except for roller skates and hand-powered wheelchairs, I think I saw just about every non-motorized mode of transportation. Which makes the point: Greenways are a transportation venue as well as a recreation venue.  If I had had the time and inclination, I could have used the greenway to head south instead of north and I’d have arrived at N.C. 49, aka University City Boulevard, at a light where I could have crossed to get to the strip shopping center at Harris Boulevard which has many useful businesses: grocery, drug store, bank, restaurants, etc.

Greenways are good for exercise and recreation, and most of the people I saw today were using it that way. But they’re also a good way to get from one place to another without using gasoline or creating carbon emissions. In the University City area and other suburban-developed places that lack sidewalks and pedestrian crossings and lights, greenways can provide essential, off-road walkways and bikeways.

But while the Mecklenburg County greenway system (sections of which are part of the larger Carolina Thread Trail) are welcome and much-needed, here’s something that makes me sad. Most of the greenways run alongside creeks, on land that A) is difficult to develop anyway, and B) parallels the county sewer system’s sewage lines. That leads to unpleasant sights such as this one:

Pipe crosses Mallard Creek near the Toby Creek Greenway

This is a sewer pipe that crosses Mallard Creek just below the spot where the Shaw trail intersects the Mallard Creek trail. It’s not a pleasant sight, especially with the debris clogged against the column holding the pipe up. The many raised concrete cylinders holding manholes along the Shaw trail don’t exactly make one’s heart soar, either. It all makes me wish that the county and its taxpayers valued greenways enough to find the money to build more of them through places where our sewer system isn’t quite so noticeable. Not that I’m not grateful for what we have … just wishing.

(One more greenway note: In watching Showtime’s series “Homeland,” filmed in and around Charlotte, I noted that one key scene, in which one important character kills someone, appears to have been filmed in one of the spots along the new Little Sugar Creek Greenway near uptown, where the path goes through a concrete tunnel under a street. Given the nature of the scene, it’s clear the spot was chosen for its eerie sense of being a concrete-flanked, urban no-mans’-land. I had to muse over the situation: We Charlotteans  are celebrating the arrival of our wonderful new uptown greenway, yet an out-of-town location scout has chosen a piece of it for a scene of creepy ugliness. Hmmm.) 

A farmer praises the Thread Trail

The Observer News Enterprise in Newton (outside Hickory, in Catawba County) has an interesting interview with a farmer who’s a fan of the planned Carolina Thread Trail.

Stanly Stewart, who’s been a grain farmer for 35 years, says some farmers worry that a trail near or on their land would bring litter and vagrants.

But Stewart says, public trails aren’t the big threat to farmers: “The major threat to farming is unbridled development,” he said. He’s right. Suburban sprawl and even rural sprawl are eating away at this region’s last farmland – ironic in an era when so many people are rediscovering the importance of locally grown foods and meat.

He has experience that proves his point. Stewart’s family owns land around Murray’s Mill, the article reports. It says, “They decided to build trails around the land for people to enjoy the property. Since the area was opened to the public, the amount of trash has greatly decreased. Stewart attributes the decrease to the public’s renewed interest in the land around the trails.
“When you light up an area, the dark goes away,” he said.”

The Thread Trail is a plan for a connecting network of trails throughout the Charlotte region. Each community gets to plan where the trails would go. No land would be taken by eminent domain. In Charlotte, a small portion runs alongside Little Sugar Creek, through Freedom Park. Someday, if all goes well, you could walk from uptown Charlotte to South Carolina, or to Crowders and Kings Mountain.