Mountain bikers in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area, home to about 2 million residents, are in a battle on multiple fronts to save access to more than a dozen miles of established trails, many of which were built nearly 30 years ago. In a fast-growing metro area that’s already short on singletrack, the loss would be devastating.
“Dirt trails to hike and bike and run on are a rare commodity in this burgeoning, growing area,” Dave Anderson, a spokesperson for the non-profit Triangle Off-Road Cyclists told me over the phone.
On Wednesday, January 29, the Raleigh-Durham (RDU) Airport Authority Board will hear public comments on a proposal to lease 136 acres of land within Lake Crabtree County Park for commercial development. The park land, which features eight miles of forested trails, is managed by the Airport Authority and has been leased to Wake County for just $1 a year since the 1980s. Though the Authority manages the land, it’s technically owned by a collection of government entities made up of the cities of Raleigh and Durham plus Wake and Durham counties. According to notes posted ahead of the January board meeting, one of the main development goals is to “increase non-aeronautical revenue to the Authority.”
According to the Authority, lakefront park facilities in Lake Crabtree County Park, which include a boat launch and picnic areas, would not be included in a commercial lease, and Wake County would presumably continue to manage whatever remains of the park. However, most, if not all, of the existing trails would be impacted and likely lost.
From unofficial trails to legitimate
The mostly beginner and intermediate mountain bike trails in Lake Crabtree are long-established, and have become a popular location for high school mountain bike team training rides. In recent years, the trails have been reworked so they’re more adaptive-rider friendly, too.
Across Interstate 40, a major highway that borders the park, riders looking for bigger thrills have built a dozen or more miles of unofficial trails over time, a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Airport Authority. Trails located to the north and west of the Reedy Creek Multi-use trail are called the 286 trails; the trails to the south and east are known as the Rocky Road trails.
In 2022, Wake County agreed to lease 151 acres of land that included a portion of the 286 trails known as 286 East for about $5.3M over ten years, according to the News and Observer, an amount that’s significantly higher than the $1 per year for the 136 acre Lake Crabtree County Park lease. In addition to the lease payments, Wake County expects to invest millions of dollars improving and supporting the trails. Though the 286 East trails lease spans 10 years, the Lake Crabtree lease has been ratcheted down to a year-to-year lease, likely in anticipation of renegotiation.
Both Lake Crabtree and the 286 trails are a massive draw for residents of the surrounding towns of Cary and Morrisville, and also the city of Raleigh farther to the north and east. Look at a Strava Heat map of the area, and you can see bright white lines converging on the zone where Lake Crabtree, 286, and the Rocky Road trail networks meet. In addition to Wake County investments, the town of Cary has also invested heavily in a trailhead facility along the Reedy Creek Multi-use trail that many mountain bikers use to access the trails.
“When you look at both popularity and accessibility in terms of how centrally located it is, I think it’s easy to say that [Lake Crabtree and the 286 trails are] the most used” in the Triangle area, Anderson said.
If the Airport Authority does decide to lease the Lake Crabtree County Park land to a developer, it’s not clear if the current zoning would even allow the sort of commercial development being proposed.
A rocky road ahead for the other trails
Though TORC is focused on the imminent threat to the trails at Lake Crabtree County Park, it’s not the only struggle for trail access in the immediate area. The Rocky Road bandit trails on the southeast side of the Reedy Creek multi-use path have remained a poorly kept secret for two decades or more. As a Triangle resident in the late 1990s and again in the early 2000s, the trails at Lake Crabtree and Rocky Road were a regular part of my rotation.
Wake Stone Co., now owned by Vulcan Materials Company, has operated the adjacent Triangle Quarry since 1982. The company signed a lease with the Airport Authority in recent years to open a new quarry (or simply expand the existing one, depending on who you ask) on the parcel where the Rocky Road trails sit. Activists and park supporters, including the Umstead Coalition which seeks to “preserve the natural integrity of William B. Umstead State Park and the Richland Creek Corridor,” successfully blocked the issuance of a mining permit for the area adjacent to the park. That lawsuit is ongoing. Anderson tells me some site prep work in the area of the Rocky Road trails has already begun, though the forest has not been subject to full-scale mining… at least not yet.
If the county loses the Lake Crabtree County Park lease and the mining permit is upheld, Triangle-area mountain bikers would lose roughly two-thirds of the existing singletrack in this zone, leaving only the 7-mile 286 East trail system.
Saving the trails is likely to be costly, but not impossible
It’s clear that saving the trails at Lake Crabtree County Park is likely to be costly, even if the path forward is yet to be determined. Anderson suggests that though Federal Aviation Authority regulations and guidance for federally supported airport land use are largely unchanged, the RDU Airport Authority has shifted their interpretation of the rules from making lands available for community benefit to now seeking the maximum fair market value for their holdings.
TORC is calling for the Airport Authority to sell the Lake Crabtree parcel to the county so it can be preserved in perpetuity.
“We encourage Wake County, RDU, and local leaders to find a way to preserve the park, even given the challenges. Feedback we’ve had suggests the outdoor community would like a resolution that is in line with the decades of public planning and investment that has made this area such a recreation destination for so many people. They want trails. We propose a compromise: RDU sells the land to Wake County.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the Authority is open to selling the land at this point. Given the precedent set by the multi-million dollar lease agreement in place for the 286 East trail parcel, the Authority is surely hoping to maximize their “non-aeronautical revenue” as stated in their goals for the Lake Crabtree development. Opening the bidding to commercial developers and government entities alike is a good way to drive up the price.
Even if Wake County is unable to purchase the land, and is unwilling to lease it at a new, higher rate, it’s unlikely advocates will give up the fight. The Umstead Coalition has shown they’re willing to use lawsuits to block the actions of the Triangle Quarry operator and could try to block development at Lake Crabtree County park based on a variety of grounds, including zoning restrictions.
Mountain bikers have a chance to be heard
In the near term, Anderson and TORC are encouraging citizens to attend the January board meeting next week to voice their support for trails and recreation. For those unable to attend in person, there’s an online form that can be used to send feedback to the board. Residents can also contact their county commissioner to let them know how important trails are to the community.
“I encourage those that submit comments to be kind and encouraging, emphasizing the public recreation value of this area and how developing that would destroy the main benefit (forested trails) of the park,” Anderson said. “I think [the] RDU board and Wake County commissioners don’t realize how valued and used the forested singletrack trails are — we need to emphasize that to them. “
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