City attorneys have settled a decades-old legal dispute with a Northwest Raleigh quarry that will restrict noisy mining operations and allow a sought-after greenway link to Umstead Park, Cary and Durham…

… While residents along Duraleigh and Ebenezer Church roads can look forward to peace and quiet, the benefits of the settlement extend well beyond the neighborhood.

Raleigh will get an easement to extend the Crabtree Creek Greenway west to Umstead State Park, which has been called the “final unresolved link” in the Triangle’s greenway network. It will also get 7.46 acres for a nature park near the confluence of Crabtree and Richland creeks and a 0.96-acre easement to protect a stand of rare Catawba rhododendron.

The greenway link will mean Raleigh cyclists can access the state park without getting in their cars. “It’s the holy grail,” greenway advocate Sig Hutchinson said. “It’s the last link in the system.”

From Umstead, greenway users can access the Cary trail system and eventually Durham’s American Tobacco Trail. But first Raleigh will have to find $3.5 million for the trail, which had been diverted from a previous bond package thanks to the legal dispute.

“It’s not even on the current greenway map because so many people lost hope,” Hutchinson said.