Greenway growing toward Jones

Gradually and slowly, plans are progressing to extend the Granite City Greenway in Mount Airy northward from its present ending point in the Technology Lane area off Riverside Drive.

The existing greenway totals about eight miles in length, nearly looping the city, and the effort now under way calls for adding about another mile and a quarter — to J.J. Jones Intermediate School.

One motivation for the project is that it will provide greenway access for the school, which already exists at other campuses of Mount Airy City Schools.

The Mount Airy Board of Commissioners voted on March 7 to accept a $4 million grant for it, awarded through state emergency and disaster response reserve funds administered by the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

This basically gave the green light to proceed with the project.

With that process requiring the preparing of designs for the greenway extension route and efforts involving City Attorney Hugh Campbell to secure property easements needed along the way, its actual construction is some distance away.

City Manager Darren Lewis offered a two-year timetable for this.

“And that’s a guesstimate,” he added earlier this spring. “Mother Nature comes into play.”

Plus, there are other factors which could impact the work, Lewis said.

Increased opportunities

In addition to providing connectivity to Jones Intermediate, the greenway extension offers increased recreational opportunities promoting active and healthy lifestyles, among other benefits, Lewis has advised.

This includes greater accessibility to the greenway by the public at large — users frequently walking, cycling and running along its course — thereby enhancing safety for pedestrians and cyclists with the extra distance involved.

It now stretches from West Lebanon Street south along U.S. 52 beside Lovills Creek to an area near the Ararat River and the Big Lots shopping center.

From that point, the pathway extends to the vicinity of B.H. Tharrington Primary School and then swings northward toward Riverside Park along the Ararat.

If the news of a greenway extension sounds familiar, that’s because such a development was celebrated not that long ago — last September to be exact.

It was then that local and state officials gathered to dedicate the latest segment, a 1.3-mile link from the northernmost end of Riverside Drive to the area of SouthData Inc. on Technology Lane.

The price tag for that project was $2.2 million, and in acknowledging that $4 million has been designated for the upcoming expansion of lesser distance, Lewis said more stream restoration could be involved with the latter.

Coupled with this will be another natural resources benefit, improved fishing and delayed harvest benefits, according to the city manager.

The greenway extension further is expected to increase tourism.

Voice of concern

While Mount Airy’s greenway system is growing, there are lingering issues regarding safety on the existing network specifically concerning the homeless population that tends to frequent that venue.

One such voice has been that of Craig Smith, a Pineview Drive resident, who referenced a 2023 incident in which a young woman was abducted on the greenway and raped by a man who’d been living under a bridge.

The perpetrator subsequently was arrested and sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

“My blood was boiling over that,” Smith said during a public forum at a city commissioners meeting last month.

The local citizen mentioned the greenway-expansion plans and suggested that officials instead “consider making the greenway that we currently have safe.”

Smith said he doesn’t want his wife using the facility. “I don’t feel safe with her being on that greenway.”

The forum speaker urged city officials to make this “a talking point” going forward.

In saying the concealed-carry firearms privilege has its place, Smith added that the story of the young woman being raped might have had a different ending if she were armed.

“I wonder (about) the taxpayer savings if she had blown that man’s head off,” he commented.

Smith said it’s a “sad state of affairs,” when cyclists, runners and walkers have to rely on concealed guns, pepper spray or other vigilant means to feel safe.

“So I think whatever you can do to make it safer,” he told Mount Airy officials concerning the greenway, a facility they regularly promote as an asset.