I was thinking ALT 2 is definitely the best. But I think these are just for south of 40. I think the plan for North of 40 will end up being basically ALT 2 with 2 travel lanes in each direction.
Looks like the full exit list between 55 and 401 will be
NC 55
Holly Springs Rd
Bells Lake Rd
US 401
Lake Wheeler gets shafted because of distance to 401 (roughly 3/4 mile). You really want to keep interchange spacing 2-3+ miles apart on 70MPH freeways to keep flow going without weaving, merge, and diverge points as well as for safety.
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I get that they like to space the exits out, but it certainly didn’t stop them from putting 4 exits with an average of less than a mile between them with S Salem, US1, Veridea, and NC55. I guess Apex must have a strong lobby with NCDOT, because Cary only got an exit every 2+ miles. I wonder if a lot of DOT engineers live in Apex and Holly Springs.
That said I don’t necessarily think that Lake Wheeler needs an exit, either…
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Verida was a late add because it was supposed to be like this mega insane mixed use property with like 10,000 units and loads of Commercial too. Not sure what’s happened, the plans are still on Apex’s site but everything is dated like 2010.
The recession was in 2008 and then the housing crisis started in 2010, I think so that’s probably why.
This is incredibly off topic, but several of you guys seems to know a lot about road projects in the area. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on with the East End Connector/I-885 in Durham? It was supposed to open like 2 years ago but kept getting delayed. Last update I saw was from December saying some railroad bridge caused another delay, but it should open in June 2021 (which starts next week). Just curious if anyone knew more.
Hoping for just some quick info, and not to derail the regular discussion on this thread.
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RAILROAD! Any projects with railroad involvement always ends up a shit show.
Pretty much waiting on a detour bridge to be moved. The actual road work is pretty much complete. I read an article where NCDOT kept it pretty “nice” in why the delays have happened “big project, bad weather, etc” but it’s basically on the railroad.
Last I saw is opening early next year.
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Thank you! Just after posting this I found a whole Reddit rabbit hole to go down. Yeah, sounds like end of year to open the connector to traffic, next spring for completion. Why it takes a year to knock down a temporary bridge and lay a mile of asphalt is beyond me.
Anyways, back to Raleigh things!
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I think it’s super helpful that you brought it up, though! Issues like those on the Connector can (and do) turn up in Raleigh, too, so it’s nice to know what it looks like from a distance. Delays for the Wade Av. and Peace St. bridge upgrades, for example, were also delayed by contract workers due to weather conditions.
As for stakeholder clusterfuckerey, you can hop over to the commuter rail thread to see how a single control-freak rail company can make things harder for the rest of us. This sort of turf war-induced delay -but much worse- is something I’d absolutely expect if anything like the Artery or Phil’s I-87 extension ideas ever get built. I think Durham’s situation is kind of a good warning for challenges Raleigh could face if a major highway reconfiguration ever happens in the near-ish future.
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Wasn’t sure where else to put this, but the Six Forks virtual open house just opened up, including design plans for the full corridor. Checking them out now.
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Next Tuesday, City Council will talk about asking the Planning Commission to review the Capital Blvd. North corridor study. Take a look at the city’s StoryMap or these posts in the “future of transit” and BRT if you forgot what this awesome proposal is about.
City staff recently found that the road upgrade will probably cost around $900 million. They’d ask for funding from NCDOT through a competitive program. Even if this project wins funding, money may not come until 2026 at the earliest since the application process is put on hold due to Covid-related cost uncertainty. Assuming this happens, this project is likely to be split into 2 or 3 phases, and start construction around 2031.
Unless City Council pulls something unexpected, city staffers are hoping to host “ask-a-planner” virtual meetings on Oct. 21 and 23 about this project. It might be helpful to keep an eye out for that if you want to tell planners how you feel about this.
Here’s an example of what they’re proposing for the “Mini City” development block:
Click here for more details about how they'll encourage and guide development in this corridor.
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I wish they’d make the Mini-City portion more of a “down the road” project, and focus Capital Blvd redevelopment and road improvements on the stretch just exiting the city (basically Peace St) down to where 440 crosses underneath. Would be great to have more pedestrian improvements and density on that stretch of currently dilapidated old buildings where Picasso Pawn, the old Foxy Lady, Golds Gym etc are
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I love this project so much.
Some may scoff at the price but this would free up the other N-S arterial so so so much and allow them to be more neighborhood corridors instead of Capital Blvd alternatives.
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Damn… All that for mini-city, but remember people live by there.
This much density, but 2000 feet between places to cross Capital Boulevard, is abhorrent.
There needs to be at least a pedestrian crossing at the midpoint here.
If you look at this plan, the problem persists throughout the entire corridor. If they’re really planning for this kind of density along this corridor, they need to plan to have a place for people to cross Capital at least every quarter mile. Every 1000 feet would be better still.
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It may be a case of “yea that’s what we want but can’t ask for that right now” type of thing. Ideally here, after built the developer or city would go back and add more ped crossings.
Or if we truly built a “mini-city” here, the expressway looks depressed from the frontage roads, it needs to be capped as a park. Again, they can’t really ask for funding for that sort of luxury item but it’d be amazing to happen.
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So Mini City gets developed as a mini city, instead of a maxi suburb?
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Designing for, and building in, ped crossings like that from the get-go would likely cost less, be less disruptive, and yield a better result, than doing it after-the-fact.
Let me put it this way: I am outright opposed to this project without more pedestrian crossings as a pre-condition. We have no business spending ~$1b+ without doing anything to improve conditions for pedestrians in the corridor.
I could perhaps be convinced to offer my tepid support if enough pedestrian crossings could be included. (Not that my support really counts for anything)
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I 100% agree with you that doing it altogether would be better. Funding sources for these type of projects are so particular and finnicky, as I’m sure is the case with most everything in the world these days. So everything ends up basically having to be separate projects.
America could save so much money and be so much better if we could just streamline stuff and make people collaborate and work together.
But to your point, it absolutely doesn’t make sense to have a “mini-city” but someone have to walk almost a mile to get from A to B when it’s only 200’ apart.
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There is a published study from the city for that portion as well
It’s a bit dated at this point and confuses me a bit in a regard.
So we have obviously our Downtown segment with blocks and signals. Then we have a mile stretch where it operates as a parkway of sorts and frontage roads and no signals. Then we have a stretch with 3 signals but once the North plan is initiated we’ll have an expressway with frontage roads from 440 to 540. Then freeway up to Wake Forest.
Those 3 signals approaching 440 will be so out of place and they should implement a similar plan to the one we’re speaking of now with frontage roads and development. The current plan keeps signals but like I said it’s about 10 years old now so who knows haha
But overall it’s a pretty nice plan and has a big focus on the greenway and connectivity for all.
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