Speaking as a traffic engineer but the public meetings are important because we are emotionless engineers and don’t always consider the “human element” with our designs, only what we perceive as more safe or efficient but sometimes people who center their life daily around that intersection may have a different perception or view of what the problems are.
6 Likes
Street design (not road/highway design), should be lead by a non-technical public official. It should be up to an elected official or citizen representative what the goal of the street is in terms of speed, volume, complexity with adjacent businesses, etc. Then the engineer team should design something as close as possible to that goal, working with the elected/public official to navigate through conflicts between reality and the goal. It’s backwards to design the concept before understanding what the goals are.
3 Likes
I live off of Whitaker Mill, and the left turn onto Glenwood to get down to Wade is a multiple-time-per day thing for me, so I’d be bummed with any option that created a median where I couldn’t turn left. Along with many others, I’m sure I’d probably end up cutting through side streets to get down to Wade, creating a new problem.
I’m all for the roundabout options—circle, peanut, kidney, rhombus, whatever. Just give me the pedestrian islands so I can safely walk to Lilly’s or Lola’s or Nofo. People might gripe about roundabouts, but they’ll learn them eventually. They always do.
7 Likes
The presentation they included states that one in every thirty northbound vehicles is traveling through this area at a minimum 55mph, and one in six exceeds 45mph. Speed limit is 35mph. Definitely a pedestrian-hostile space.
I made sure to note on Concepts B, D, E, and F that they would probably make speeding even worse. Anything that reduces the amount of thinking you have to do as a driver makes you more likely to speed.
6 Likes
We’ve seen this time and time again in Raleigh. Folks were baffled by the Hillsborough/Pullen roundabout at first, but now no one bats an eye. Even driving at peak hours, I’m usually through that thing in less than thirty seconds without incident.
I think my main complaint with the roundabout option is that there’s no real way to protect cyclists. Let’s face it, these aren’t gonna be Dutch roundabouts, I think we all know that. Therefore, even if the approaches are protected, cyclists will have to join general traffic to travel through. Not ideal.
9 Likes
A few years ago, I did a study for NCDOT at the 5-leg Franklin Street & Merritt Mill intersection in Chapel Hill and one of the things we suggested was the 5-leg “peanut” roundabout shown as one of the “options”. That ended up going nowhere and the Town/NCDOT just settled on doing some sidewalk/median/signal improvements at the end of it all.
3 Likes
Is there any way to design a roundabout such that dedicated bike lanes could be added in later? Or would it all need to be done at once?
If I recall, the Wake Forest & Automotive roundabout is going to have protected bike lanes around the outside of the roundabout - https://cityofraleigh0drupal.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/drupal-prod/COR16/BP_Northern_Roundabout_ppt.pdf
5 Likes
Here’s the links to the Five Points survey where you can give your input about the different options: Five Points Streetscape and Safety Study - Concepts Survey
7 Likes
this always seemed odd to me being beside a largely engineering school.
There’s a “peanutabout” in Cambridge, MA:
13 Likes
That looks fantastic. Definitely could see that backing up at Glenwood, but important to remember that streets operate as a system, not in silos. If 5 points became lower volume, Wade, Oberlin, Capital, Six Forks, and Wake Forest would pick up the rest…or people would drive at different times… Or bike instead 
1 Like
I need to go check it out, since I’m close to Cambridge. If I do I’ll post pictures in the other cities forum
2 Likes
It’s the one I voted for…The other options (except the traditional roundabout) do absolutely nothing for walkability & slowing down traffic. Some were so bad I couldn’t understand why they even included them.
1 Like
Raleigh : more Wickedly good ideas, please…
YES. The roundabouts are ok for vehicle traffic but bike/ped is a whole different experience. I hope they will go with one of the options that take that into account. Five points as it is now is terribly confusing and not friendly to anyone!! So I am glad they are looking to redo this intersection.
7 Likes
Right on. All the roundabout stans need to go walk the Hillsborough/Pullen roundabout and get back to me about how pedestrian friendly it is. (Spoiler: it isn’t.)
Any roundabout plan would take an absolute minimum of about 8,000 square feet away from pedestrians to make the island at the center. This is not even counting the extra pavement space required as the medians widen on approach to the roundabout.
The Hillsborough Street roundabouts were a compromise. The goal was to maintain as much traffic flow as possible while road-dieting down to one lane in each direction for most of the length of the NCSU portion of the Hillsborough corridor. In this case there’s not really a “corridor” that benefits from this road diet, there’s just this cluster around this intersection.
8 Likes
Roundabout fan here 
. I’d argue that there are other benefits to a roundabout outside of helping pedestrians cross the street. If a roundabout would slow drivers down from 40mph to 20mph through the intersection (it would) then the whole neighborhood automatically becomes more pedestrian friendly than it already is. Even if I’m not crossing Glenwood, slowing cars down in that area makes me more comfortable as a pedestrian walking along Glenwood, or dining outside at Lilly’s/Lola’s/NOFO for that matter.
10 Likes
Aside from the fun roundabout history, I had no idea the church spire was a newer addition
https://www.instagram.com/p/CkQlafcLdE0/
9 Likes
Agree with the point about the other benefits of roundabouts for pedestrians. Looking at the square footage dedicated to pedestrians v. cars doesn’t tell you much about the experience of using the space as either one. As a pedestrian, the amount of sidewalk matters less than how easily I can cross and the speed at which cars are whizzing by. As a driver, I might accept a one lane road if it meant I had a continuous flow of traffic.
Either way, it’s sorely in need of improvement and great to see that it’s getting the attention. I live in the area and use it multiple times a day. My out-of-town family refers to it as a “locals-only” intersection because they’re the only ones who could possibly understand it.
8 Likes