I believe a substantially larger percentage of commuters would choose to not bike (or walk, take transit, etc.) if they had a choice — meaning if we designed our world around people rather than cars. We can still have that environment if we choose to, and we have to start somewhere.
For what it’s worth, I recently completed a small survey for a college class in which I asked commuters of various ages what their ideal commuting method would be, and nearly half of the respondents selected an option other than the car. I think there’s substantial pent-up demand for alternative transportation options in our region; it just has to be made readily available and useful for people to take advantage of it.
That entire area where Capital, WF rd, and Atlantic intersect / merge is just one hot mess. Going south on WF, you have to loop around to Capital going north, exit onto Atlantic, which then turns back into WF all that to continue down WF towards downtown. Not sure what kind of brainchild it took to come up with that road plan. The thing is difficult to navigate by car, and next to impossible for pedestrians / cyclists.
The entire area needs to be scrapped and started over, but I know it’s not very likely in the near future.
The link is to The Capital Blvd Corridor Study, which directly addresses a lot of the concerns and complaints in this thread. There are a lot of good ideas in here.
That’s a real shame because it would really create an amazing corridor for both cyclists and walkers to access downtown from Five Points, and expand downtown’s sphere of influence.
I am assuming that this bridge over Capital would have looked something similar to the one over 440 near Wade?? I think Raleigh (in general) is missing an opportunity to add some interesting bridges into our infrastructure. Atlanta and Greenville/Spartanburg have been creating some interesting bridges over the past several years. Some just include signage and lighting, nothing too crazy. I would love Raleigh to do the same as bridges are being replaced/upgraded. Then again, that would cost money, and we all know how tight the wallets are with the City/DOT.
The Gorman Street cycle-track will be discussed at the June 4 City Council Meeting. Maybe we’ll actually see this cycle track after it was discussed in 2014. According to the backup material, the cost is around $470K.
Gorman Street is recognized as a significant part of the City of Raleigh’s bicycle and pedestrian network. The project will install a two-way, curb-separated bicycle facility from Sullivan Drive to Hillsborough Street. Its improvements will complete a missing link within the City of Raleigh’s Greenway network as well as enhance the safety of pedestrians and cyclists traveling between Reedy Creek Greenway and Rocky Branch Greenway. The project’s construction is anticipated to be funded by a federal grant awarded through the Capital Area MPO’s Locally Administered Projects Program. The program requires the City to request authorization to proceed with advertising the project for bids. Before pursuing this authorization from the MPO, staff will provide a project design update to the City Council.
This is a big leap in the right direction and I hope Raleigh does more separated, connected bike transportation projects. There is something in this project I can’t sort. Is there a portion which goes from protected bike lane to non-protected for a portion? IMO, slaloms from protection into car traffic and back are some of the most dangerous moves into which the city can force cyclists. I hope that isn’t what happens here.
It goes from greenway to protected bike lanes back to greenway but riders will have to cross traffic at Gorman and Hillsborough to transition from the greenway to the bike lanes and vice versa.
Per BikeRaleigh’s website, there will be an open house on Tuesday the 18th, from 4-6pm at State of Beer on Hillsborough St. to review the next steps on the Harrington St. Cycletrack project.
