The only problem is that your examples are showing nice relaxed diners at tables and chairs, and that’s NOT the vibe going on at all. Formulaic and rapid conversion of properties into liquor selling money printing machines is what’s prevalent on Glenwood Ave. These business owners couldn’t care less about placemaking on the avenue. They only care about the money.
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This needs to be well thought out because I can see the cars just being pushed east and west of Glenwood to where most of the district’s residents live. The proposal and solution needs to take into account more than just Glenwood itself. Continued development points toward Glenwood South becoming something fundamentally different, but that has yet to bear fruit. The Creamery block will further the experience that started with Smoky Hollow, and more and more residential keeps being built. While we await and welcome that transition and others along the strip, the uncontrolled nature of the district on weekends only accelerates.
I’m all for new strategies, trust me. However, when I don’t see action/response/improvement to what’s happening now, how am I to have confidence in a future strategy?
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I appreciate your work on this. Keep us posted!
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Agreed that many businesses will not “participate” but I still think some would really embrace it. The environment in the pictures I posted was very unique to that place (and we’d need to come up with our own ways to make it special), but it was much more hectic than you’d think. Tons of alcohol, street food, loud music, etc. Easily more energetic than Glenwood; definitely not a bunch of folks calmly enjoying some outdoor dining. It was nuts. But it was awesome, and a huge tourism draw for the city.
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Your photos remind me of both Espanola Way and Lincoln Rd in Miami Beach. These are fundamentally different places than clubs that line Washington Ave, and to a lesser extent Ocean Drive. I don’t believe that you can just close off a street to cars and it will suddenly calm down. The types of businesses on that street matter more.
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Emergency vehicle access can’t get through these streets anyways. Arguably, making these pedestrian-only would make these streets more accessible to emergency vehicles. Not less. It is impossible for an ambulance or firetruck to navigate Glenwood South on a Friday night. For rideshare, users can take Boylan Ave and West St. For food pickup, there are plenty of sidestreets.
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I do see your point; it would need to be a well-planned and iterative process.
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Like I said earlier, this means that all of the traffic is just pushed to the east and to the west where most of the district’s residents live.
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There are plenty of residents that live on Glenwood too. If the goal here is to close Glenwood South to traffic on those nights, then this is the most likely first guess for what should be considered in a trial solution.
EDIT: Relooking at those streets:
Glenwood:
- Glenwood Towers
- 510 Glenwood
- The Gramercy
- 222 Glenwood Condos
Boylan
- Paramount
- 712 Tucker
- The Devon
- The Gramercy
West Street
- Peace Raleigh Apartments
- The Line
- The Link
- 400 N West
I’d go as far as to argue that there are just as many residents on Glenwood as there are on any of the other streets. Glenwood has to deal with both the crowds and the traffic. Looking at the other streets, they are more than capable of being used for rideshare and pick-up/dropoff. Especially considering that the current traffic on Glenwood would be split between them.
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The vast majority of residents on Glenwood do not access their homes by vehicle from Glenwood. They primarily access from cross streets, and on Boylan & West. Pushing traffic to Boylan & West is going to cause as many problems as it solves if this is not thought through properly.
In a car dependent city, you can squeeze the toothpaste tube all you want, but you are still dealing with the same problem. The density of drinking (alone) establishments on this one stretch of road invites the traffic and (insert any problem that a density of drunks causes here) that arise from the Friday/Saturday night party hours.
Glenwood South needs fewer drinking only establishments and more diversity in nightlife/evening options like the photos shown earlier. While I am all for creating pedestrian zones, it’s not addressing the core issue that needs to be resolved. The cars aren’t creating the crime wave; it’s people.
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I think John is correct. It’s the kind and quantity that these places attract. Hopefully evolve and be replaced with more upscale wine and cheese type establishments and problem goes away. The city is asking for it with a density of cheap boozy hangouts. Need more restaurants less bars.
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Any leads on the motivations for previous shootings? Seems to be a regular sat night/sun morning thing. Gang related?
Sad that we recently lost C Grace and the Rockford, two classier places.
The unfortunate truth is that Hillsborough street was, and still should be, the cheap drink part of town.
I understand NC State doesn’t want “drunktown” on their front door, but no one is going to stop college kids from going to bars. So what they really did was create more drunk driving opportunities by pushing the bars further from where college kids live.
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This is true and unfortunate but that’s also kinda where I’m at; as a current 23-year-old, we’ve gotta be able to go somewhere. There’s a lot of young people here. I wish Hillsborough St. was that place but it’s not. Glenwood is now that place. I say embrace it.
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Honestly, a really great point. Just very difficult to do that without penalties or incentives.
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Most college students are under 21 and legally can’t drink.
I don’t think that students of any of the schools make up the majority of the action on Glenwood.
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Lots of students are out on Glenwood every weekend, but they aren’t there with firearms.
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Some of these issues have been amplified by both its party-scene reputation and the profit-looping of certain ‘entrepreneurs’ associated - to John’s point - but it’s always seemed like the folks causing the ruckus in GloSo have always had an average age higher than college age participating in its peak moments - always folks who should know better, who roll in to be be part of the show from somewhere else and who end up showing their ass because their worse impulses were fueled by the opportunity.
Obviously that tipping point has been a tough nut to crack and even though you can start to see a hopeful shift out there on the horizon, we’ve been out here bobbing along waiting for it to happen for some time. Maybe there are some more levers to pull in the short term, but it bubbles up often enough that multiple factions of the folks living in the seams of the district are beyond the limits of their patience and soon enough it becomes a bigger and likely sadder point of community consciousness…
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I don’t think Raleigh is inherently doing anything wrong compared to Nashville or Austin. Nashville, for reference, has one of the highest violent crime rates most years you look at it, only looking reasonable next to Memphis which is much worse. Denver’s violent crime rate is higher as well (another boomtown with a mainstreet closed to traffic. Worth noting that 16th st mall gets its fair share of murders on it).
Violent Crime rate per capita
Nashville - 1,009
Denver - 1,053
Austin - 467
Raleigh - 343
North Carolina is an extremely strange state because Wake County is actually one of the safest counties in the state, in terms of homicides per capita. Boltman is literally more likely to be shot in Chatham County. It’s astonishing but the numbers are the numbers… probably very flawed and partial and wrong but there you go.
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