Happy Trails: Bolin Creek Greenway Reopens

RECREATION & LEISURE

By Randy B. Young
Correspondent

Here’s a saga with a fairy-trail ending.

CHAPEL HILL –At the end of June of this year, Tropical Storm Chantal crossed paths with Chapel Hill, its trails and greenways—including the popular Bolin Creek Trail, leaving many of the Town’s parks and natural resources underwater.

Happily, the Town of Chapel Hill Public Works and Parks and Recreation Maintenance crews announced that the Bolin Creek was open as of Friday morning, Nov. 7. Meanwhile repairs are still underway or planned at additional sites, including Fordham Boulevard Side Path and the Morgan Creek Trail, according to the Town of Chapel Hill website.

At the (healthy) heart of Chapel Hill

The Bolin Creek Greenway Trail is a 10’-wide paved trail running from east to west along Bolin Creek for about two miles through the heart of Chapel Hill, but it is also close to the heart of many bikers, strollers, joggers, and lovers of the trail’s clean, natural meadows and wooded floodplain. It stretches closer to 2.5 miles when the Tanyard Branch Trail, located just to the west and adjacent to Northside Elementary School, is added.

According to the Town website, the trail offers “easy pedestrian and bicycle travel (including new ADA accesses) from the Chapel Hill Community Center on South Estes Drive to Umstead Park, and the Northside neighborhood and downtown Chapel Hill via the recently improved Tanyard Branch Trail. Also connects the Community Center Park and the Battle Branch Trail.”

The Bolin Creek Greenway and other trails in Chapel Hill promote the health and well-being of Chapel Hill citizens by providing various recreational opportunities such as hiking, bicycling, and quiet contemplation in nature, the website stated.

“It preserves the natural environment by providing buffers between developed areas and open green spaces,” the Town website said, “and it provides…a safe and pleasant transportation alternative that connects neighborhoods, schools, shopping areas, and parks.”

“Bolin Creek Trail is really a corridor that a lot of people use for transportation, not just necessarily recreation,” said Senior Manager of Planning and Park Operations Kevin Robinson, “so getting that thoroughfare open was very important.”

Bolin Creek was one of numerous local rivers and streams that flooded as a result of nearly nine inches of rain from Tropical Storm Chantal on July 6, 2025. Photo by Randy B. Young

“Water” we to do?

Tropical Storm Chantal hit Chapel Hill hard on July 6, 2025, dropping around nine inches of rain in places in just hours. The stormwater reached depths of nearly five feet deep in residential neighborhoods, businesses—especially along East Franklin Street—and, as fate would have it, numerous park and recreation resources.

Residual flooding from overflowing Bolin Creek lingered for days in such areas as the Hillsborough Townhomes off Bolinwood Dr., and off Hillsborough Street east to Camelot Village apartments across from University Place. Debris littered Umstead Park and the surrounding trails just west of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, all the way along Bolin Creek to Eastgate Crossing, where floods swept vehicles around the parking area and flooded businesses. Eastgate Crossing, University Place, and Mariakakis Plaza reported $17 million in damage.

“It was very unfortunate, because we really felt like we had the greenways in great condition,” Robinson said. “We’d established some perennial and annual flower beds, and we had a really nice stand of grass throughout the trail. This flood just kind of came through and wiped out a lot of our staff’s hard work over the last several years to really beautify our trails. It was disheartening for our staff to have had this (occur), but we’re continuing to get out there and try to get the trails back to where they were before this flood happened.”

Brian Payst, who was walking his dog on the newly reopened trail earlier this week, said the floods literally shifted the course of Bolin Creek.

“If you looked down (the stream), you were like, ‘Why are the sewer lines in the water?…Oh the water used to be over there,’” he said. “All of the rock (and debris) that was underneath Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (MLK) went downstream and blocked up the channel, so the river went, ‘Screw this, I’m going this way.’ It’s great now though.”

Through a collaborative project between Chapel Hill Park and Recreation and Public Works agencies, the Bolin Creek Trail, which runs east-west through Chapel Hill, is now open, featuring greater resiliency and resistance to flooding. Photo by Randy B. Young

‘God willin, and the creek don’t rise…”

Robinson said the restoration was a collaborative effort by Town departments.

“We’re working together,” he said. “The Town Public Works staff that does a lot of construction has a lot of the large equipment needed, so they’ve really hopped out there and did a great job reestablishing the shoulders and the safety of the trails. And then our (Chapel Hill) Park and Recreation maintenance team that traditionally does the mowing…and maintenance of the trails: their vegetative management (crew) got out there as well and tried to get stuff established to where it looks a lot better.”

Restoration of the Bolin Creek Greenway began in mid-October, with the section west of Umstead Drive to Umstead Park, followed by the section from Umstead Drive east toward the Community Center. The trail will be reopened one section at a time, according to the website.

“Part of this initial repair work was to temporarily narrow the width of the trail where the damage is most extensive—between Umstead Dr. and Bolinwood Dr.,” the site added. “This (allowed) part of the trail to be used while the longer-term repair and restoration work could be designed and constructed.”

The next phase of restoration will focus on the Fordham Side Path between Cleland and Ridgefield Roads, east of Fordham Boulevard, where temporary repairs are being made to the pedestrian bridge and Side Path trail. Those repairs are expected to last around two weeks, weather permitting.

“We haven’t finished that work there, but we are working on it,” Robinson said. “There’s a washed-out area that’s pretty bad that they’re having to fill back in and make it passable.”

Repairs to existing trails and greenways added long-term preventative measures to existing projects like a path extension to Willow Drive. The Town is now creating a new, more resilient product. Design work is currently underway, and construction is expected to commence in Summer 2026.

Robinson said there has been extensive structural restoration along the shoulders of the Greenway path.

“We’re working as hard as we can to get everything back open as quickly as we can, and we’re excited to get the Bolin Creek Trail back open and to get the other stuff back open too,” he said. “At the same time, we are looking at how to make the trails more resilient to this type of flooding in case this was to happen again.

“We’ve put measures in place that will hopefully prevent this type of long closure from happening. Where Bolin Creek goes underneath (Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard), that will take some real planning, engineer drawings, and some real thought to make it resilient to this again.”

Payst said the Town’s preventative measures are noticeable: “They’ve reinforced the edges, and it’s really nice, actually.”

UNC Sophomore Whitney Stanley, who was walking her dog this past Tuesday on the Bolin Creek Greenway Trail near Umstead Park, said she had used the resource a lot prior to July’s flooding.

“I did run down here a lot last year, but I will say it’s definitely better—much better paved,” she said, “especially once you hit the end of this side of MLK and then cross over that bridge down and past MLK Blvd.”

A flood of knowledge

For those wishing to have a voice in the future of Chapel Hill’s parks and recreation efforts to shape spaces and enrich local lives, there will be an in-person, public listening session detailing the Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Master Plan in the Seymour Center Auditorium (Homestead Road) Thursday, Nov. 20, from 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. The public is invited to share their thoughts about parks, Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation facilities, and open spaces.

A Dartmouth College graduate, Randy B. Young first worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter in New Hampshire, then in communications at UNC for over 30 years. He maintained an award-winning newspaper feature covering Recreation and Exercise in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County. Retired and living in Chapel Hill, Randy continues to write for regional publications both locally and in New England, and his book, And the Stars Flew With Us, is available through Amazon and at independent bookstores. He coaches track at Chapel Hill High and has a photography business, Pierless (sic) Photography. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press