McDowell and Dawson Streets

I suggest the city fix the crosswalk at Pecan and Saunders before they start tunneling pedestrian walkways. Or maybe adjust the crosswalk at Layden and Wilmington so that pedestrians have more than a couple seconds to cross six lanes of traffic. Its barely enough time to drive through that intersection let alone walk. Or maybe we could put sidewalks in on Wade avenue or any number of other roads that don’t have them at all.

I get that these are just suggestions for the sake of discussion but my point is that the state of pedestrian infrastructure in this city is utterly pathetic. There are so many things that need to be done before we start tunneling under Dawson that the city refuses pay for. How can we ever expect a pedestrian tunnel?

5 Likes

Couldn’t agree more. Let’s start with more sidewalks and bike lanes on these busier roads.

3 Likes

What is up with the crosswalks at Pecan/Carolina Pines and S. Saunders? The signal boxes have been in place for months (at least) but are still wearing “out of service” covers.

We shouldn’t shy away from thinking big, but let’s not ignore the easy solutions, e.g., make the crosswalks at Pecan and Saunders operational and sync the lights on McDowell/Dawson to incentivize driving at the posted speed.

4 Likes

The fucked up thing about this is the fact that it is the only crosswalk for miles along that corridor. There isn’t a ton of pedestrians but that intersection has the most foot traffic south of downtown, by far. You would think it would be a priority getting those signals online but its not and its sad. Its a symptom of a complete lack of respect for and even hostility towards pedestrians. Raleigh will never be a great place until there is wholesale attitude change.

1 Like

I can think of infinity better uses for the hundreds of millions of dollars that it would cost to tunnel Dawson and McDowell.

My thoughts on these streets: (1) Remove on-street parking and dedicated turn lanes (2) Turn the space saved by removing parking and turn lanes into protected cycle tracks (3) Keep three lanes of through traffic in each direction (4) Keep the signal timing as is.

Using these streets as a bus corridor is also not ideal IMO because it does not get close enough to Union Station or Moore Square.

4 Likes

9 posts were split to a new topic: Development at Saunders/Lake Wheeler

Any plans on keeping the R Line…I think that it will help shuttle folks from Moore Square to RUS if Phase Two of the Development goes full speed ahead kind of like a trolley.

I drive a work truck through DTR every morning up McDowell and most evenings back down Dawson. Frankly if going from the south side of Raleigh to anywhere inside the beltline, straight through downtown is the best route.

Most traffic I see is through traffic, so I think a freeway type situation would be best, with no exits, just S Saunders to Capital. I’m curious if you trimmed these 2 down to 2 lanes, could an elevated road be put right on top of the current streets without greatly disturbing anything around them. Since traffic is split, the above freeways could be 2 lanes if needed as well for a smaller footprint. Mcdowell and Dawson can then have a lower speed limit and other traffic calming measures to discourage through traffic.

Failing that, I would be really against any traffic calming, lower speed limits, etc on those two streets. Likewise I’d be very against less lanes and narrower lanes. If the speeding on the road is the issue, then the city should adjust those lights so you can go from stopped on one end to out the other end, at 35mph, without stopping again. As it is now, you need to go about 42 mph, consistently, to do that.

Either way, someday the city is going to have deal with the lack of any sort of North/South artery.

1 Like

Well coming from someone who owns a house in South Raleigh and is raising a family in South Raleigh - your morning commute is not on my agenda. Speeding and aggressive driving on S Saunders and Wilmington is completely out of control and something must be done about it. 60 - 70 mph is the norm on that stretch heading into downtown and in my 3 years in the neighborhood I have not once seen someone pulled over. The traffic laws are simply not enforced.

5 Likes

I try to avoid walking along McDowell and Dawson unless I absolutely have to; the speeds some vehicles travel at make it extremely dangerous. You’re just one curb hop from potentially getting creamed. Plus it seems that the way the lights are timed up actually encourages speeding as people race to get through each light.
The only place I’ve ever seen speed enforcement is when police sit under the Western overpass to get people coming from South Saunders where the speed drops before coming into town.

1 Like

I wonder if, as we see development along this corridor and traffic gets much worse, if that will perversely help pedestrians by making it harder to fly through?

2 Likes

Depending on where you are coming from and where you are going, in addition to the beltline of course, I have sometimes ound Raleigh Boulevard to be a credible alternative.

Any elevated roads through downtown should be completely off the table. This is not the 1950s.

Raleigh considered building a north south expressway east of downtown in the 1970s connecting from Hammond on the south through to Capital on the north, through the heart of Oakwood. The plan was scuttled in one of the very few successful freeway revolts in NC history that I am aware of. If this plan, which was less disruptive than what you propose, got killed, in the 1970s, then no way could that move forward.

The compromise plan we got was to connect McDowell and Dawson under the RR and through to South Saunders.

4 Likes

Why can’t we just enforce traffic laws and build basic pedestrian infrastructure? S Saunders, Western Blvd, and Wilmington are an urban planning abomination.

5 Likes

Putting this here because these two streets have been the subject of my ire for ± 10 years now because they are unsafe…too fast on no pedestrian safety measures at all. I tried to get the City, who punted to the State to do something before someone got killed. Well, now someone has been killed.

“The Office of State Human Resources extends condolences to the family, friends and coworkers of Dr. Anne Hakenwerth, who died on Thursday after being struck by a vehicle as a pedestrian near her workplace at the Cooper Building in downtown Raleigh. Dr. Hakenwerth was an employee in the Division of Public Health’s epidemiology section at the Department of Health and Human Services.”

The Cooper Building is on McDowell St near Lane.
I’ve been asking for 25 MPH and/or bollards at every intersection. Campbell felt it necessary to install bollards in front of their doors which face oncoming Dawson St traffic. I don’t give two f&*^s how long it takes you to get through downtown in your car if 25 MPH is what it takes…this is BS BS BS.

7 Likes

I won’t walk on these two streets if I can avoid it and if I’m standing at an intersection waiting to cross I always keep an eye on traffic not that it will do any good because there’s 0 chance of getting out of the way of a car coming at you at those speeds if they jump a curb within feet of you.
Dr Hankenwerth’s death is a tragedy and one that is easily avoidable for a government/society that doesn’t place vehicular convenience above the lives of its citizens.

8 Likes

I usually stand back a good 10 feet. Resent my 2011 email to council warning them about unavoidable fatalities along these two streets, with some more acid. All but one council member has changed…maybe they at least bring it up with the State.

2 Likes

Dr. Hakenwerths death is a tragedy.

3 Likes

25 mph is what speed limits are in much of Manhattan and more than a hundred pedestrians there still die every year. It’s just physics — getting hit by a car going 25 mph isn’t really all that different than getting hit by one going 40. Both are WAY more force than is necessary to kill you.

If you want to protect pedestrians on these roads, actually protect them. With bollards, for one. And by turning these streets from one way to two way, and widening the lanes and installing a median in the process, like what’s going to be done on Blount and Person.

2 Likes

Wait, is a median in the works for the Blount/Person project? I hadn’t heard of that.

Really? I’ll do the research for you.

Seems the relationship between speed and risk of fatality is exponential.
Untitled

Also - New York City is among the safest cities for pedestrians in the country.

Nevermind - Its one of the safest in the world.

Take a guess where all the most dangerous cities for pedestrians are located…

A bit old but this report mentions Raleigh.

11 Likes