I’m surprised I haven’t seen more accidents on Wade. With how narrow some sections get, how windy the road is, how hilly, how residents stop in the middle of the street to make left turns into their driveway. It’s a pretty sketch road.
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I’m very familiar with the route however the greenway isn’t lit after dark (with the exception of the lights under the bridge). This becomes a problem during the winter as well.
Taking the greenway also increases the distance. Doing a quick distance calculation, it could take about 10 minutes longer walking via the greenway. That may not seem like a lot but putting it into a car’s perspective that could an additional equivalent of adding 4 miles or 10 miles travelling on the freeway. If you’re trying to access a business on the other side of the road (BofA, Wells Fargo, BestBuy) then the difference is even greater.
Not sure if you saw NCDOT’s latest iterations for the interchange from a few years ago… 
(check this out if you’ve never seen it @atl_transplant haha)
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Haha yes! Some very interesting ones there. That area is a hell hole right now to put it nicely
The initial idea NCDOT had was pretty simple, extend Crabtree Valley Avenue to the existing Ridge Road interchange and have that access available for traffic going between the beltline and Crabtree Valley Mall so people going to/from the mall wouldn’t need to use Glenwood Ave. The people who live along Ridge Road threw a fit complaining about potential cut through traffic and the destruction of trees buffering their neighborhood from 440. Their city council member at the time also lived along Ridge Road and went to NCDOT and got them to hold a few listening sessions for the neighborhood where the neighbors successfully got them to scrap the Crabtree Valley Avenue idea and throw all of the improvements onto Glenwood Avenue instead.
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The young Jedi learns quickly.
You are correct that Wade is likely untouchable in any meaningful way. To straighten and flatten it like was done many moons ago on Lynn Road west of Six Forks, it would take up way too much space to do so. While it may be an annoyance to deal with it as is, I rather enjoy the lower speed undulating roller coaster ride that it is. Many of those similar experiences that used to exist in north Raleigh are gone, and it didn’t make that part of the city better IMO.
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That is 100000% believable. Looking again at these concepts I have to say #2 is my favorite because we’re completely removing signals for the through movements and doing that may convince people going to Durham to use Glenwood thus removing vehicles from I-40
Once the little western blvd connector is done, we may be able to take some pressure off of Wade as well
One thing I know that has been talked about is that they want to straighten out the curve by the St. Mary’s Street intersection. I think property in the northwest corner of the Wade & St. Mary’s is going to be up for grabs at some point so that would help with that as well.
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I (still) drive a manual transmission. In fact, I’ve only owned manual cars. In any case, I love Wade because I can sail through much of it on momentum alone and in neutral. That S curve is one of my favorite parts.
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Unfortunately the Glenwood Ave interchange improvements have been delayed almost to beyond 2029 at earliest after the most recent round of NCDOT rescheduling and rebudgeting.
The one project that was moved FORWARD was completing 540 between 40 and Knightdale. That breaks ground in 2026 now, 3 years earlier than planned, since it’s being paid for by the joint venture via the NC Turnpike Authority.
" NCDOT delays hundreds of highway projects, but one in the Triangle will start sooner"
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article246281865.html
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I think the NIMBY council at the time declared the Crabtree Valley Option “dead on arrival” without letting NCDOT refine it further.
I think there may be a way to do it with less impact on the neighborhood. They just didn’t try hard enough yet because, essentially, council opposed it so hard.
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Yep and I’m completely fine with that because maybe it will give them some time to think about how insane their current ideas are there…
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This is a very good design at a glance. I actually prefer this more than all the DOT designs. Might run into a few hiccups clearance wise where the loops are but other than that, this is some next level stuff here
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Speaking of which, I’m currently working on a Traffic Impact Analysis for a development on the northern end of National Drive. I would be completely cool with giving us access at that ramp signal - we just don’t want to touch that though because of the uncertainty regarding that interchange…
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NCDOT had something closer to this on the table (with the connection to Crabtree Valley Avenue) but that got nixed because of Ridge Road neighborhood, and City Council, opposition.
The difference between this and NCDOT’s design is that the loop of the trumpet interchange between 440 and Crabtree Valley Avenue curves north/east, instead of south/west.
Keeping the 440 offramp to Ridge Road would be feasible with this design but not the onramp.
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I’m still in awe about the 540/40/70 intersection that’s under construction…pic stolen from the N&O article I linked previously. They actually have a fly-thru video to see what’s what
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Reminds me of the 85/73/85 Bus interchange out in Greensboro. Looks like all these ramps have 60 mph design speeds
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Might be a good compromise to get the neighborhood folks on board if we actually cut off ridge road altogether from direct 440 access.
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I think NCDOT definitely had a plan to do that initially but I remember seeing a trumpet style design that showed them taking some of the land from the parcel west of Ridge Road/north of Tazwell Place for the 440 EB Off-Ramp to Crabtree Valley Ave and that didn’t help at all (the person who owned that property was one of the leaders of the neighborhood movement against the project)
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