Welcome to the Community, @RaleighSouth!
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Welcome to the community!
Reminds me of Chuck Marohn’s testimony about a new Taco Johns in his hometown in the midwest. The new fast food restaurant replaced a blighted strip mall that had gambling, tattoo parlor, etc. and everyone was happy. The new development checked all the zoning boxes for landscaping, ADA accessibility, fire, signage, parking, etc. etc. However when the shiny new fast food chain development was finished, it was instantly less valuable per acre than the blighted strip mall they destroyed to build it. The increased infrastructure burden was not outweighed by the new property tax base. With the “improvement to the land”, they had actually made the land less productive, on a dollar per acre basis. I think it’s important to remember that when we destroy Golden Seafood and Chicken and the like to replace it with a single-use auto dependent development pattern, we are likely increasing our liabilities and decreasing our assets from a city planning perspective.
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I mean say what you will about “making the land less productive” when we “destroy Golden Seafood and Chicken”. I think it’s hard for any redo of this land to make it worse than it already is. I’ll gladly roll the dice for an upgraded new expanded gas station vs a dilapidated old Hardee’s. This is all you’re going to lose: the ugly red roof and peeling paint of a failing business. Really hard for me to see that we are “losing an asset” in this case.
South Saunders is the mecca of cheap gas in the Triangle. 20 cents a gallon cheaper here all along this section of gas stations adjacent to 40…
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Right, and I agree with everything you said. However you are speaking from an aesthetic and experiential perspective, and I’m speaking from a sustainable development pattern perspective. Watch Chuck Marohn’s Google talk.
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It will be interesting to see how this area plays out with development over the next several years as Raleigh’s southern gateway transforms with large development projects (Downtown South), smaller development projects, transportation improvements, and land acquisition in the area.
I think that Chuck Marohn makes some great points in his approach to sustainable development, but I think where we are different in this location is comparing it to Marohn’s bustling strip mall with 7+ businesses versus our case of an underperforming restaurant and relatively small gas station in an area ripe for redevelopment and proposed transportation improvements.
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I fear that once DT South comes, and that starts to bleed into the surrounding areas being developed that S Saunders is just going to become a slog. We’re already over 50k vehicles a day. Really hope the city and DOT takes at least a look at making Wilmington the primary travel corridor and trying to give Saunders the neighborhood feel.
If you’re interested, see some of the chat about that above!
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S. Saunders has been a slog since I moved here in '94. I think S. Wilmington was chosen as the southern BRT corridor precisely because it would cause less interference with existing levels of traffic, i.e., lots on S. Saunders and not so much on S. Wilmington. Also, S. Saunders has the I-40 interchange and S. Wilmington doesn’t.
I would love it if S. Saunders developed a neighborhood feel and became a street instead of a stroad, but I fear it will be a car sewer for the foreseeable future. Anyone have any examples of places near interstate interchanges that also have a neighborhood feel? Serious question.
I live near the Carolina Pines & S. Saunders intersection and am excited about the Carolina Pines Ave improvement project, which includes a 10’ multi-use path on the south side of CP Avenue. But it’s hard to get excited about the prospect of being able to safely and comfortably walk to a shiny new Speedway. I’m sure it will be an improvement over what’s there now (I’ve never eaten at Golden Chicken & Seafood) but I’d rather see something along the lines of a Gateway Plaza development.
@RaleighSouth - Welcome!
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Landscaping and 50% reduction of vehicles and cutting the speed limit to 30 by turning Wilmington into a limited access Downtown access parkway would go a long way for Saunders. It’d have more of a urban boulevard feel rather than “the way to go” as it is now. The BRT would work fine on Wilmington with the change because 50k vehicles with no lights would basically be LOS “A”
I can’t really think of an example in Raleigh off the top of my head though that’d be a good comparison.
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I’d love to see the speed limit on Saunders reduced to 30, but it’s a US highway:
How hard would it be to get the FHWA to agree to such a speed limit on a road with interstate access? Again, serious question. I’m sure you know way more about such things than I do.
You’d have to quantify significant safety benefits to even have a remote chance at making that happen. Maybe 35.
It sucks because at this point, in cities / urban areas at least, non-interstate “US highways” and even state routes really are nothing more than numbers and have rather wonky routes to begin with.
You could possibly push the US 70 / 401 designation onto the new Wilmington St but then you have to figure out how to get it back onto Dawson / McDowell before they turn into Capital Blvd. FHWA probably wouldn’t like that, but again, at this point these routes aren’t much more than numbers and if the SW edge of the Beltline didn’t jut out so far you could make a case for 70 to just follow that and for 401 to follow the Eastern Beltline.
Thinking through my original Southern Gateway plan a bit more I think we can utilize the massive and vastness of Hammond south of I-40 to our advantage here. Basically you could split the S Saunders and Hammond interchanges into split diamonds - W facing ramps at S Saunders and E facing ramps at Hammond. That’ll discourage people from using these two interchanges unless they really need to.
People needing to get to / from downtown and southern suburbs can use the new interchange at the upgraded Wilmington St. I’ve now carried that south too, jutting over to the original Hammond Rd alignment down to the 70 / 401 split where it’d tie into the 401 through alignment. Everyone traveling from Garner / Fuquay to Downtown would now be off of Saunders allowing us to reduce it and safely encourage neighborhood development.
I think this would also discourage through traffic through downtown because we’re eliminating that straight shot on Capital / S Saunders as the “straight shot”.
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I’d love to see the speed be 45 until it actually gets into downtown. That 35 mph sign ruins all the money shot pictures, plus it seems too soon to slow down. (I’m kidding. Mostly…)
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I don’t think youd keep people from Garner and south of Raleigh off of South saunders… It turns into 401 (0r rather for a one splits back off) and is a major north south highway.
Tying the connector directly into 401 as it comes to 70 and signing it as 401-70 instead of S Saunders should get at least 50% of vehicles off Saunders.
Then sign 401 with 40/440 around the east Beltline to Capital Blvd.
Taking the numbered routes off of S Saunders would allow the city to set the speed limit to whatever they please.
I haven’t figured out the best routing for 70 though for it to avoid the center of downtown.
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haha our old office boss took us one day to the Golden Seafood and Chicken for lunch because it seemed like such a weird place and it actually wasn’t that bad!
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The worst looking restaurants in Black areas usually have the best food lol at least in Atlanta
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If you’re ever in Durham, go check out Chicken Hut
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Where’s that? I love hole-in-the-wall eating!
It’s where the American Tobacco Trail intersects with Fayetteville Street south of NCCU. It’s one of the best fried chicken places I’ve been to in the area - https://goo.gl/maps/wMR43Z56SEhMg8DF8
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I LOVE the name of the place. Chicken Hut. F Pizza Hut, go for Chicken Hut!
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