In Miami most cyclists not only don’t stop at red lights or stop signs, they don’t always ride on the correct side of the road, even if there’s a bike lane. I can’t imagine them caring about this sort of intersection.
I’d hope that Raleigh would adopt to it better if it were to come to pass.
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This is definitely a Key West style. The pecking order is bikes > mopeds > golf carts > cars.
What about one wheels and pedestrians?
Good point:
bikes/OneWheels > mopeds > golf carts > cars > humans
So humans are last? 
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Next Critical Mass ride is 6/14
“We’re back at it the 2nd Friday every month - Meet you at the Belltower Friday 6/14 and let’s roll out at 7! Who are you inviting to join?”
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Maybe they’ll eventually bring back Bike First Friday.
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When I was posting about my recent trip to Greece, some thoughts popped up on biking tourism and how it could be a good thing for Raleigh (see my other post where we rode while on a trip to Greece).
Given that biking can be a viable tourist activity on a resort, I would like to see an urban greenway that would connect major parts of downtown Raleigh with separated cycle track. Raleigh does have bike lanes, however they are often blocked by police, buses, typical drivers, or building construction. A separated cycle track could help with tourism if it manages to connect visitors to varying parts of downtown. It could also be a drive for local businesses. An example would be from John Winters Park, which provides greenway access, to Smoky Hollow; Or it could be entirely down Hillsborough St. towards the college (which then connects to the greenway/NCMA). I had a coworker fly in to visit our office here. I ended up taking them on one of the Crank Arm rides. They loved it (granted I let them use my ebike). It’s something I think that could help Raleigh tourism wise. I already ride downtown for the Crank Arm rides which seems to do a lot for Crank Arm alone (along with the food truck that is there). A lot of people have mentioned they feel safe riding in a group. Imagine what it would be like if people felt safe riding without the need for a huge group.
When I’ve visited other cities, I’ve tended to take time to ride as a tourist. I rode around Central Park while riding in NYC. What strikes me about this trip is that this was back in 2017 before I was back into biking. I had ridden with my wife and her parents. Of course Central Park was a very safe place to ride around. It was about 6 miles around the park.
On a separate trip, I chose to visit Greenville, SC instead of Charlotte since Greenville appeared to be a better city at the time to do some biking (Click here for my post about Greenville, SC). In Washington DC, we spent some time biking around the National Mall and the Wharf (Click here for that post).
Raleigh has some good greenway paths, but it seems that downtown tends to really be lacking as far as a greenway system (or something better than a blocked bike lane). If we could get an urban greenway system downtown, I think this would be a draw for tourism. These were just some thoughts that popped up when I was posting about my Greece trip.
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Here’s some signage that I hadn’t previously seen on my daily walk. The protected path on Hillsborough is intended for pedestrians only.
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Connectivity downtown is severely lacking for the greenways. Something that needs to be addressed bigly.
Not would it help tourism. This of us living outside of the urban center could ride our bikes easily into downtown.
There has been some brainstorming on this site about the Artery. There is a thread on here somewhere about it.
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I would love to know People For Bikes reasonings for some of their rankings here. We are apparently the 5th most bikeable city in North Carolina, and our score is well behind Charlotte and Cary.
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@wanderer you probably already have, but make sure you’ve filled out the Downtown Mobility Study survey!
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Rocky Branch Greenway dead ends at Cabarrus Street in Boylan Heights. Cabarrus is too wide and not a major E/W artery since it’s broken up at Fayetteville Street. Plus they are already tearing it up for the pipeline project. Why not extend the greenway down Cabarrus, across the tracks , past Fayetteville and down to Chavis (with connections to Little Rock and Walnut Creek greenways). Boom you’ve got your downtown connectivity.
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I zoomed and scrolled their Raleigh heat map a bit for areas that I’m familiar with and it seems WAY off.
Yeah - This heat map is odd. Doesn’t seem to take into account the greenways. Plus Falls of Neuse corridor in N. Raleigh gets better scores then downtown. How does that makes sense.
It seems as though they consider our trail systems to be park or recreational facilities instead of part of the city’s bike infrastructure. I’m assuming that they mean on-street (including shared-use paths along roadways) are what they are considering as true bike infra.
This is understandable because our trails provide limited access to important services, hospitals, grocery stores, etc. Once you leave the trail, you’re basically in mixed traffic.
Taking a look at the comparisons between Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta, it seems to heavily favor Charlotte in areas that completely surprise me. I am not trying to turn this into a flame war, but having better access to people than Atlanta seems inaccurate.
Having better access to recreation than us when I believe we have a larger number of parks and acres of parks available within our city seems… strange. Also lol at the transit score being higher than Atlanta’s.
I am not trying to be a Charlotte hater (I do enjoy my time usually when I go down), but this feels off.
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Perhaps it’s Charlotte’s giant land area that allows it to accumulate points regarding the data points?
That’s what I think as well. Quieter suburban streets probably get higher ratings based on People for Bikes criteria, and Charlotte’s large land area allows for a greater number of those to be included.
Charlotte’s greenway system is connected to its downtown. Raleigh’s isn’t. That’s one huge advantage that leaps to mind. And yeah, you can’t really use Raleigh’s greenway system to commute except in limited cases. The South End greenway is really really good and IS a realistic commuting option.
Is the scoring fair? Not sure. I feel like this is an area Atlanta should probably win at, but numbers are numbers.
As a recreational greenway of course, Raleigh’s system laps the other two. It’s way longer and has a lot more scenery.
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