Kinda off topic but been enjoying reading the discussions about all the roads, where they go and why they’re now named what they are. For Wake Forest Rd, (based on what I have pieced together from various maps as well as random internet comments), I believe it initially started in downtown where it currently does, and followed its current route to where it turns into Atlantic Ave at US 401. However at this point, it curved to the left and dipped underneath the train tracks where the narrow road with the bridge is, then connected to what is still Wake Forest Rd on the west side of the tracks. If you look at an aerial view map you can see the connector; it’s also visible when driving past. From there it followed the current alignment to the Red Lobster, and would have essentially continued straight onto what is now Old Wake Forest Rd. The next section of Old Wake Forest has been rerouted in a bunch of places but it basically would have gone dead straight to Spring Forest Rd (via fragments of Old Wake Forest Rd that are now just dead-end side streets), then continued straight through what is now a shopping center at Spring Forest and Atlantic. At the north edge of that shopping center is another brief vestige of the original Old Wake Forest Rd alignment before it reconnects with the still-intact route that intersects with Capital Blvd about a mile later. At Capital, while the road on the eastern side of intersection is now signed as Old Wake Forest Rd (where it passed by TTC), that is a relatively modern connector to Fox Rd and not a part of Old Wake Forest. Instead, Old Wake Forest I believe continued straight up what is now Capital Blvd until (ironically) the Falls of Neuse Rd intersection. Here, it veered to the right onto Main St and went straight into Wake Forest.
I’m far too young to remember or even have witnessed any of the original Raleigh road alignments, but I enjoy looking at maps and piecing together where some of the roads used to go. I think one of the most surprising to me was that supposedly US 70 followed at least part of Leesville Rd through the Brier Creek area, or at least that’s what I understand from various internet commentary.
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