Downtown Gateway

This was by far the best Asian in Raleigh. RIP.

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Soo off of Capital in Brentwood has some of the best Korean fried chicken in the area. Great food.

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Went to Bali Hai So. Many. Times. Saw a “B” grade sanitation score more than once. I don’t think that discouraged many people. Somewhat ashamed to admit that it didn’t stop me. I don’t think I knew at the time how bad something has to be in order to get a “B” grade. And besides, I was like 21 and invincible. Now I know, and now I’d probably think differently…

I LOVED that place. RIP.

Bali-Hai still exist. It’s on Strickland Rd in N Raleigh. Same food, cleaner restaurant. They also have a location on Ninth St in Durham.

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I think there’s one in Garner as well, next to Lowe’s. My parents used to go there.

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Unless we are proposing that our Downtown Gateway be a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, then we are WAY off topic now!

Giant Waffle House to welcome you into downtown. Oh wait this isn’t Atlanta, there’s not waffle houses on every corner! Haha

Something I’m curious about on topic:

If you were traveling from the Renaissance Park area to north hills or vice versa what route would you take.

Routing Decision
  • S Saunders / Capital / Wake Forest
  • 440 Eastern Beltline
  • 400 Western Beltline

0 voters

I would take the directions that Waze gives me. ;-). My brother lives not far from that area and I live near NH, and I always go through the city which is not only more interesting but turns out to be faster or as fast as the beltline.

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I might even go S. Sauders/McDowell/Capital/Wade/Glenwood/St Mary’s.

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Probably the way I’d go depending on my mood. I never use GPS. I just kinda go wherever I feel like seeing that day.

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tried to map the google directions but it didn’t work.

Alright some more complication

  1. You’re travelling from Garner or Fuquay to Downtown and have the option of travelling the new S Saunders St that has a 30 MPH speed limit + signals or the new Downtown Connector with a 55 MPH and no signals that follows this alignment. Both routes are around 3.25 miles long.
Downtown from South
  • S Saunders
  • Downtown Connector

0 voters

  1. Travelling from US 70 or 401 going to North Hills with the same Downtown Connector / S Saunders set up plus Capital Blvd upgrades and Wake Forest Rd and West St Extension.
  • DT connector, Capital, Wake Forrest
  • DT connector, Wake Forest Ext
  • S Saunders, Capital, Wake Forest
  • S Saunders, Capital, 440
  • DT Connector, E Beltline

0 voters

Full plan

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Love your ideas, ATL. glad you throw out interesting things to consider that some may not have thought about.

Google maps shows 40/440 East (around past Big Wake hospital), to be 10% longer and ORANGE (delayed)
can’t imagine anyone would take Western routing on 40/440 under normal circumstances, let alone while it’s all dug up for the next 2 yrs LOL.
TBH, i can’t imagine any route for the start and endpoint you gave except the straight shot north on 401 & Crapital to WF, unless there was some giant obstacle downtown

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Yea, goes to the main problem that there’s just no easy way to convince people to not go through Downtown. I’m not sure things like Congestion based pricing or other mitigation factors will ever pass through legislation.
I know Google Maps is working on a “Fuel Efficient” option when selecting directions. I’m willing to bet that using the E Beltline would be more fuel efficient. That may help some but probably not enough to really make a dent.

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Why is this something that anyone ought to be convinced of?

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I am so far literally the only one who would take the beltline. Yet Google says the eastern beltline is faster by 2 minutes and I’m inclined to agree. To be blunt, this is contributing to the traffic problem downtown.

To me, that screams that the entire route through town is too fast. Get those speeds down! We’ve should get that delta up into the 5+ minute range to remove as much downtown cut-through traffic as possible.

Dropping McDowell/Dawson to 25mph is a no brainer, and would add a minute of travel time and barely impact capacity. Dropping the 45mph segment of Capital to 35 might add another minute and would actually increase capacity. The 40mph speed limit on ITB Six Forks always struck me as odd, given how narrow the lanes are. Go to 35, there’s another minute.

Next, add some stoplights:
Six Forks & Browning;
Six Forks & Barrett;
Wake Forest & Georgetown;
South Saunders and Prospect;
South Saunders and Penmarc.

None of this is intended to be punitive, by the way. These are all needed enhancements that will make life better for everyone. If y’all still want to joyride through downtown to check out the construction progress of whatever developments are going on, feel free! But please do so a little more slowly and understand that this should probably add a few more minutes to your schedule than it does today.

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IMO, Dawson and McDowell have way too much traffic for a Downtown street and there are no “good ways” to get to Downtown.

From my unofficial looking through every city in America, we are the largest and only “big” city whose downtown does not have direct highway access. Thus our main downtown streets which should be pedestrian focused our heavily used by freight and through traffic. While the connector wouldn’t solve the through issue it’d make the approach much safer. We 100% do not want a highway going through or even in Downtown. Just better access to downtown is needed for future growth.

I personally think as we continue growing, Dawson and McDowell will become completely chocked and nobody will want to develop on those streets causing a black hole in the center of Downtown and basically we’d be better off if we did have a highway because people wouldn’t use Dawson / McDowell in that case. Also, without better access to downtown, as S Saunders becomes more choked people won’t want to come downtown and you never want that to happen.

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If I’m not mistaken, I feel like the lights on Dawson / McDowell are timed for 25 right - it might be 30? So going any faster you’re technically penalized.

I think only us nerds on here do that! lol so lowering the speed limits and adding more signals probably would do the trick. We just have to be careful and not discourage people from coming TO downtown.

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Personally, I don’t want highway speeds or highway-like roads north of 40. That will only kill the city’s ability to extend its core experience southward. A proposal for it would have to be incredibly/extremely thoughtful and non-disruptive for me to even consider it.

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