I'll tell this story for the very last time. Then I promise never again. I was on the original survey crew for these trails with ESP Associates out of Cary. At that time it was simply known as the Rails to Trails project. Over the course of several weeks of walking miles through Durham down the old track path we were followed more than once by several "groups", (I won't say "gangs" to be PC) of kids on many areas of the trail. They taunted, brandished knives, yelled threats, mostly followed and taunted us to the point where our crew chief would not leave the van for the day without his revolver.
At the time we joked we would never ride a bike down the trail "with an AK-47 strapped to the handle bars". It was evident at that time these trails went through the wrong back yards and neighborhoods in Durham. We told these tales to the Rails to Trails project manager at the time, who we met a few times on the job. He didn't care. Pet project verses verses demographic and cultural reality.
So saying the location of these trails was a bad idea from the start is not just rhetoric. The words were actually spoken way before the first drop of asphalt was poured. We knew we were creating nothing more than a path for marauding little bandits to travel between housing projects and low income apartment complexes. It goes through the worst parts of Durham. Anyone involved who is now surprised by the level of crime on this trail was never paying attention from the start. At least one just blatantly ignored the hired help. This is not news. It was an inevitable, easy call.
But the race-baiters insist that there should be no place in America where a person has to be scared about passing freely.
Ha.
Whites know there are entire districts that we simply should not walk.