We did drive to it, in fact, and still had an awful time of it!
Although I think the real post-mortem on this event was the ‘street festival’ aspect closing down the central access road meant the obvious entrance was useless for cars. They had staff awkwardly telling everyone to u-turn on Whitaker Mill.
A bit of driving psychology turned this into a small fiasco, at least for us. I had no idea if the deck was full or just not accessible from WM. So I had a choice of either continuing down Atlantic, past RIW to reach Wicker and try for the deck, or go straight across Atlantic to try to find a spot there and risk the pedestrian crossing nightmare.
The idea of trying for the deck, striking out, and then having to turn left back down Atlantic when I was already kind of confused and overwhelmed (and hungry) was too much. Took the closer option, as did apparently many others who were darting across the street.
We’ve been to RIW in the past when it was pretty quiet, took the first entrance and parked in the deck no problem, it was a good experience. This was anything but (although the festival itself was fun, and very well attended).
If they could close the entrance right at the Whitaker Mill turn instead of halfway down the street, that might help, but I doubt they can. In lieu of that, they need much more obvious “event parking” signage telling people to continue down to Wicker. There were a lot of very small signs all the way down the block, but they were all obscured by that darn road barrier and not obvious to cars.
We drove by on Atlantic during the event, it was mayhem with all the drivers trying to turn in and out of Wicker. Drivers were attempting to make a left turn out of Wicker onto busy Atlantic, Also attempting to turn left from Atlantic southbound onto Wicker with no left turn lane, blocking traffic.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the access/transportation side of RIW was poorly thought out. It’s great that they hold festivals and markets there where they close down the “Main Street”, but the placement of the parking deck on the north side of the development rather than the south side means that drivers have to come in and out of RIW on the uncontrolled Wicker intersection rather than on Whitaker Mill where they get a traffic light and protected turn lanes. In addition to the lack of pedestrian infrastructure already discussed. Seems like maybe for planned events, they should close the intersection on Wicker and force drivers to come in the back side using Hodges St.
I’m not a planner or traffic engineer, so I’m sure I’m missing somethings and maybe the current design is the best option given the tradeoffs, but these kinds of issues are what turn normal people off of supporting big mixed use developments like this.
I agree. It really feels like something (or maybe a number of small things) are just broken with the whole setup. Hopefully not irreparably so.
It feels even more problematic since there’s residences there. At least in a true urban apartment if there was festival mayhem traffic you could just walk to things.
I usually just drive to iron works and park in one of the fake uneven spots in the deck. If I had to go across the street for some reason, I’d probably just drive over there. Saves me from having to walk back to my car too. There’s often a market in the drivespace on the weekend at iron works, so I expect it.
I really do think a simple pedestrian bridge and a really long perpendicular ramp for those in wheel chairs who really want to make the trek would do the trick.
This is a good observation of the likely mentality for this area. “We don’t want to install something because we’re holding out for the ped bridge”.
A strong towns approach here would say: what’s the next increment of improvement we could do that would make this area safer today? Not tomorrow, not next year, but today?
This should be unacceptable. This design should belligerently violate the Raleigh street design manual. The UDO. Whatever
I was in the area on Saturday and saw one family picking up two strollers (with children in them) and carrying them, over the guardrails. Surely there is a solution for this area but who will pay for it and what design will work best is beyond my skillset. An underground tunnel would be a great fit (perhaps?) but who would pay for it and is it feasible?
To be clear the big “cliff” behind the sidewalk is not a blocker for a crosswalk.
I wonder if they just didn’t put one in because of a CYA scenario: you don’t build a crosswalk if there is nothing to connect to. Whereas, if there is no crosswalk, and a literal crash barrier at the curb to prevent crossing, it sends a clear message that “this is not allowed; cross at your own risk”. In reality this is probably less safe than a crosswalk to nothing, but better for the city and developer from a liability standpoint.
Anyway as far as improvements are concerned. Best case scenario, they could replace the barrier with bollards at the intersection. Permeable for pedestrians. Not for cars. Worst case scenario: the barrier will have to be moved behind the sidewalk.
It reminds me of years ago when I worked in a building on a very busy four lane thoroughfare. I tried a few times to walk across the street to go to the bank because - hey it was just across the street. But after several times of “can I outrun the car” I decided it was best to get my car out and just drive across the street. Silly but true. This I am afraid is the current situation at RIW. It is not meant to be walkable. It is two separate and distinct areas and thus must be treated as thus. Sad, but true.
From the satellite image of the intersection, it doesn’t really look like the developer intended to focus solely on the bridge. The amount of sidewalk space right at the corner of the intersection seems to imply that there was thought given to a pedestrian crossing here. The city might have nixed the idea at the moment without a sidewalk on the Loading Dock side of the development.
Just drop the stoplight line back a few feet going South on Atlantic, fill in that huge corner next to Dock 1053 with concrete, add sidewalks going along the Dock 1053 parking lot going West, and then add two crosswalks connecting both corners…
My girlfriend works in Dock 1053 and they cross the road regularly to grab lunch in IronWorks. I keep trying to emphasize that they should be much more careful when doing so. Her coworker actually said they tripped and fell when trying to jump over the barrier. I can’t imagine a family trying to do this as well.
I keep saying this, but the city should really turn Atlantic from a major arterial road to a local street, especially south of Hodges but ideally even south of Six Forks. One lane in each direction with maybe a center turn lane. Convert the outer lanes to multi-use path that connects to the greenway and apartment complexes on Six Forks. They need to start thinking of this area as its own destination rather than a pass through to get downtown from North Raleigh.
I think the concern with that idea is removing the guardrail on the north east corner of the intersection. A car could fairly easily jump that corner and plunge down into a crowd hanging out in the patio below at RIW.
Yup exactly what I was going to respond with: bollards would be a pretty simple damn solution, here. And they don’t even have to look ugly. I found these via Google image search lol:
