This sort of thing keeps coming up so much that I am starting to wonder if you guys are actually serious about it. Please say it ain’t so.
I think it’s a terrible idea by the way. Downtown Raleigh has no substantial natural waterways and manufacturing one for show would be a waste of resources.
The big grassy hill at Dix overlooking downtown is a wonderful, natural feature that we are now starting to embrace. We don’t need to make up a waterfront out of thin air. We don’t need to be that desperate. Devereaux Meadows, whatever they do by Walnut Creek at Downtown South, by Rocky Branch at Park City South, and by Crabtree Creek through midtown and by the mall, will be enough waterfront for a city like Raleigh that just wasn’t built around waterways.
Yeah - I think it would look great. But agree from an implementation standpoint, I don’t think it’s feasible to pump all that water around artificially.
Pigeon House Branch greenway will be DTR’s natural water feature whenever that area gets cleaned up and parkified. I wouldn’t want to do anything artificial beyond cosmetically improving that creek.
Anything is feasible technically. Just look at Dubai. I just think it would be tacky as hell to create an artificial Fayetteville St river like we’re a Disney property or something.
This is probably what you’re implying, but I just want to get this out there since I have the opportunity: Dubai is notoriously wasteful when it comes to land and resources. It’s a billionaire/influencer playground with minimal regard for sustainability. They’re making a lot of the same auto-oriented development mistakes that the US made in the mid-twentieth century. Not a particularly good role model.
Is Dubai impressive? Yes. Should urban planners be looking to Dubai for inspiration? No, absolutely not.
If anyone is curious about this, Adam Something did a couple helpful videos on it. I’m not familiar with much else that he’s done, but I learned a lot from these two.
I think this is great news, and to me Fayetteville Street is a logical place for the pilot program.
It has a fair number of bars and restaurants as well as some public areas, but it doesn’t get overwhelmed like Glenwood South does. Fayetteville St is a place they are trying to get more foot traffic.
As Knight says, a big key will be the interaction of pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
They mentioned that the pilot program may extend to Wilmington and Salisbury Street.
The city needs to get over its ‘family friendly’ BS–leave that for the bedroom communities like Cary. If you’re taking your kids out on a Friday at 1 AM you’re not family friendly parent anyways. I don’t get why that is even a concern.
I think that works better in cities where it’s actually cold all winter! Lol
I went to an ice hotel/ice bar/outdoor drinking trail at ice stations in Quebec City once. It was really cool. After a few drinks, I stopped caring that I couldn’t feel my extremities.
