Agreed - love the place BUT this is why small business owners can be their own worst enemies.
Embrace the change out your front door…
Otherwise, something like the Cardinal figures out your program and improves it…
I think all lunch oriented restaurants are struggling because most of the workers haven’t returned yet.
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I’m not saying that they have to abandon their old school charm or anything, but at least make the place look like it’s open, not run down and closed.
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That is my feel too. I have been 2 times and they were both times I was walking around the area and happened to be hungry so I went in. I think I may have parked 3 or 4 blocks away once but never in front of it.
Not sure if the right place for this post but thought the article contains some insights / commentary we could find in agreement with our locale…
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Looks like the Triangle Bikeway’s preferred alternative is starting to be put together! The Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO’s meeting this Wednesday will have a presentation with updates on this project.
(Note: CAMPO is also a stakeholder agency for this project, but it looks like they just stick to verbal updates about this project.)
Click here if you forgot what this is about or you want to see the receipts for this study.
To refresh your memories, this is a study to find out if a bikeway can be built that roughly parallels I-40 between Chapel Hill and Raleigh, and what’s the best way to do that. Think of it like a highway for non-car vehicles.
The corridor is split into two parts: from the 440/Wade Av. interchange to Hub RTP (which was called the Park Center in planning stages), and from the Hub to the Glen Lennox neighborhood in Chapel Hill outside of UNC. The latter is just doing a feasibility study, but the former already went through that and is going through engineering design.
McAdams, the planning consultancy behind this study, looked into what people want from this bikeway (e.g. where they want to go, what features they want), as well as who they were. Overall, lots of responders wanted to go to destinations along the general footprint of I-40, with particular emphasis on UNC, Southpoint Mall, 40-adjacent businesses around RTP, Morrisville, Umstead Park, and Lake Crabtree.
Respondents clearly preferred separated greenways and protected bike lanes over other solutions. This means some project alternatives like mixed-use lanes got axed as engineers came up with potential designs.
The study team seem to be converging this preferred route:
If you're curious about other alternatives, click here.
The design team looked at lots of other alternatives for specific areas (gold), though they didn’t keep them around for several reasons like environmental impact, poor connectivity, and conflicts with other existing/future road projects like the widening of NC54.
It looks like the route east of RTP’s largely a greenway entirely separated from I-40; it will not just be stuffed into the side of NC54 or another local road. Here’s a preview of plan sheets around I-40’s exit at Aviation Pkwy. You can see raised mounds on the edge of the highway’s right-of-way; this is where the greenway could run.
I’d take this study’s conclusions with a grain of salt, though: the study grouped together responders to four categories of cyclists and used the Portland Bike Study as a baseline to see how skewed their survey sample was. If you assume Triangle residents as a whole have the same distributions of attitudes toward cycling as Portland’s, regular cyclists who know what they’re doing are very over-represented in this study while non-cyclists are underrepresented.
Click here for the data.
The distributions of the four categories out of survey respondents looked like this. Notice how half of the Triangle’s survey responders are in the “Strong and Fearless” and “Enthusiastic and Confident” groups (read: people who enjoy and are comfortable with biking regularly) when the Portland study only thinks less than 10% of their populations fit that group.
This is how people of each category commute to and from work.
Here’s how often people in each category bike, normalized by category (i.e. the yellow bar on the far right is about 65% of “Not Interested” people, not 65% of all respondents).
Interestingly, respondents from all groups had similar preferences for what engineering features the bikeway should have.
We don’t have pretty renderings for this project, yet, since there’s several aspects that are not yet defined. There’s a survey coming out later this month so the project can learn from you about specific design features like:
- where you’d like to walk (not cycle) along this route
- where you’re most likely to get on/off this trail (i.e. key access points)
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I love the idea of this, as the area between Raleigh and RTP is lacking some serious bike connectivity. This may get me to bike commute to RTP. I have looked at routes and nothing currently seems very pleasant.
I hope its to be done right. I can parallel I-40, but not right next to it. The last thing a biker wants is 8-lane traffic noise and exhaust fumes in full sun heat. Hopefully it will be separated some, with some shade cover trees.
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There’s 80 feet between the outer edge of the shoulder and the bikeway (see the last non-hidden image, highlighted in yellow). From the bigger map, it also looks like there’s plenty of room for trees to remain intact there, too. I’d prefer not to bike right next to a freeway, either, but I think that’s more than enough of a separation to be and feel safe.
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Yeah that actually sounds pretty good. Didn’t mean to be critical. Almost anything will be an improvement to what we have now - no practical (safe) bicycle connection between Raleigh and RTP.
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Citylab article on proposed Greenway Stimulus. Mentions Atlanta’s beltline and the East Coast Greenway which is based in Durham goes through Raleigh.
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atlantic always seemed busier to me near the spring forest area and pattern busy near highwoods mostly going north. i used to ride Atlantic to downtown raleigh quite a bit and from six forks to in town it was pretty empty. that was a few years back however.
canadian goose poop problems
TC-3-21, which will amend the Raleigh Street Design Manual to make curb-separated bike lanes standard on arterial roads is open for public comment until June 11.
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The Triangle’s contribution to the East Coast Greenway can hold its own with any other place along the route with much of its part being off road trails compared to much of it still being on-road.
For the last 18 years, I’ve ridden my bike from Miami to Key West on fundraising ride, and every year the “greenway” has improved and made the ride more enjoyable and safe through the Keys.
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Next week’s meeting for the Planning Commission’s Transportation Committee will discuss changes to how some roads and bike lanes will be laid out in the future. Here’s an example that’s relevant for downtown:
…and how different lane widths (in feet) could be for a 3-lane (1 each way + one turn lane) with curbside parking with this proposed change:
Basically, they’re proposing that future bike lanes be pushed behind the curb so that it’s more like a bicycle-only sidewalk rather than a bike lane on the road. This change may require additional road-bike buffers (read: buy more rights-of-way). But in return, they could be be cheaper to build and feel safer for cyclists thanks to the grade separation.
Also, shout out to @RaleighBikeLady, whose name I saw while scanning through the public comments!
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I used to go to school on that same block!!!
Have seen this a few times in Boston today but separated bike lane with bus stops in between (sharrows used at the stops)
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In my opinion, there is ample room to add single bike lanes (separated and on street) on both sides of Glenwood Ave. from Glenwood South to Crabtree. There is enough room for separated bike tracks on both sides of Glenwood from the Anderson Drive/St. Mary’s Street intersection to Glenwood Place just before the 440 interchange.
I just hope the NCDOT and RDOT can collaborate to make something like this happen on this street.
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State maintained street improvements (US 70 & NC 50) will be a state government decision. I had hoped for a roundabout or perhaps a divided thoroughfare with a stormwater structure between the lanes at Glenwood-Anderson-St Marys, but the city is developing a stormwater structure on the city owned pocket park at Wake Drive. No coordination between the 2 bodies and thus, good luck with the state & the coordination of bike lanes. Outbound #6 bus-stop at this intersection lacks access for pedestrians coming from the southeast quadrant and for any Anderson Drive pedestrians. What a cluster for nonmotorist. Be prepared to sprint through a couple of nonmarked crosswalks and drivers hitting 60 mph+ on Glenwood. A coordinated plan could have been a shovel ready Fed infrastructure project. But alas….
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