The state Division of Parks and Recreation toyed for a year with the idea of opening a third automobile entrance to Umstead State Park (at Graylyn Drive), and it received a few hundred comments expressing sharp opinions on both sides.

The Raleigh City Council's Public Works Committee struggled this year with calls to erect "No Parking" signs in residential neighborhoods where Umstead users leave their cars There were sharp, competing opinions here, too.

State and city agencies helped create these problems. The Umstead maintenance gate at the corner of Trenton and Reedy Creek Roads became an even more appealing destination for park users after the city and the state extended the Reedy Creek Greenway west from the NC Museum of Art -- and stopped it there. The closest parking lot is two miles away at the art museum.

NCDOT banned parking on the state roads outside the Graylyn and Reedy Creek Road maintenance gates -- after it justified paving Graylyn by using high traffic counts that had been generated by those same parked cars.

Both the city and the state are wary of taking steps that will set uncontrollable precedents, cost money and perhaps create new sets of environmental, legal and political problems.

So the parks division refused this week to open the Graylyn gate. And the city council said ... [MORE]

Runners and cyclists hoping for easier access to the state's busiest urban state park lost ground today:

State officials said they won't turn dead-end Graylyn Drive into a third automobile entrance to Umstead State Park.

And the Raleigh City Council prepared to post more No Parking signs on neighborhood streets near an Umstead gate on Reedy Creek Road. [Update 5 p.m. Tuesday: The council delayed action on the No Parking proposal, sending the matter back to committee for more deliberation.]

Lewis Ledford, the state parks director, announced a plan to improve a bumpy gravel road inside the park that provides access from the Glenwood Avenue entrance to the Sycamore Bike and Bridle Trailhead (see map). The road will be paved when funds are available, and the trailhead parking lot will be expanded.

He rejected an option, floated a year ago, to let park patrons drive to the same trailhead on what is now a maintenance road with a locked gate at the end of Graylyn Drive off Ebenezer Church Road.

“Our overriding philosophy must be to minimize the development footprint at Umstead as one way to protect the wild and natural landscape of this state park,” Ledford said in a news release. ... [MORE]

Maybe you can't park there. But you can get a dandy tan.

Umstead and State Park officials want your input in solving the parking dilemma at this once popular neighborhood entrance; the NCDOT does not.

The N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation this morning released several alternatives it is considering to once again make access to Umstead State Park possible on Graylyn Road. See the N&O's Bruce Siceloff's report here.

As the state DOT prepares to pave Graylyn Drive — a short gravel road that dead-ends at a locked maintenance gate to Umstead State Park — the state Division of Parks and Recreation said today it is considering new Umstead access options that include unlocking that gate and turning Graylyn into a new park entrance. [9/12/8 update: see today's N&O story and map.]

Graylyn became popular in recent years as a parking spot for hikers and bikers who used it for quick access to the park's bridle/bike trails that start near Graylyn.  DOT said last year it would pave the road ("Umstead paving plan means a parking ban"), and it posted "No Parking" signs to get rid of the cars that sometimes lined both sides on weekends.

Park users protested that the DOT move eliminated easy access for many people, especially on workdays and before and after park opening hours.  Graylyn is a few minutes away from the park's formal north entrance off Glenwood Avenue, but the parking lots and trailheads are located a few miles down bumpy gravel roads inside the park.

[Update 6:30pm Thursday] Get official description and maps here or at the Umstead visitor center. Div of Parks and Rec wants public comment by Oct. 10 only on the three alternatives A, B and C. 

Email comments to denr.dpr.media@ncmail.net or post them to:

William B. Umstead State Park
8801 Glenwood Avenue
Raleigh, NC 27617

Here are the three options to improve Umstead (see park planning area map) access:

Alternative A: No change. (See Alternative A map.)

Alternative B: Improve access to the trailheads via the existing entrance road from Glenwood Avenue.  Pave and widen the one-mile gravel road leading to the trailhead parking lot. (See Alternative B map.)

Alternative C: Open the maintenance gate to make Graylyn a new unpaved entrance road to the trailhead parking area. Access from the Glenwood entrance road to the trailhead parking lot would be cut off, to block through-traffic. (See Alternative C map.)

Paving of Graylyn Road may finally begin; State Parks expects to release Umstead access plan this week.