Over the past few months both TRTC and Cary’s Parks & Recreation Department have been busy on trying to develop solutions to the serious parking limitations facing trail users at the three crossings in Chatham. We’re happy to report that over the next few months users will have access to two new parking areas in Chatham. At the New Hope Road crossing, Cary has recently widened and graded a portion of the utility access road located just east of the trail crossing. Here is a recent view of this interim area. After final surface materials and rolling have been completed in the next month or two, Cary plans to open this area for use as interim parking for trail users. As we have reported earlier, Cary plans for the ATT include a much larger, permanent parking area off of New Hope Church Road to be built in 2013. At Pittard-Sears Road, TRTC has received permission from NCDOT to develop a parking area on a parcel on the north side of Pittard-Sears Road (on the west side of the ATT). Preparing this parcel will require removal of some trees, grading of the section to be used for vehicle parking, and construction of a wide, asphalt apron. A short connector path to the ATT will be built at the north end of the lot. Warm weather users of the Chatham ATT will be glad to know that our plans for Pittard-Sears include putting in a water fountain! We are currently seeking contractor proposals for the major clearing and grading work and hope to break ground by March. This will be our largest project for the next few months so we’ll also be holding workdays for our volunteers at this area. We’ll be letting our volunteers know the specifics for these workdays in our weekly Emails to trtc-volunteers. During the Spring of 2012 we’ll have a number of workdays on this key project so if you are not yet on our list to receive Emails before our workdays, please go to our Volunteers page for sign-up links. Go to our Directions Page if you need driving instructions to the Pittard-Sears crossing.
