Let’s be honest: In any other city there would be a skybridge over or tunnel under Six Forks. You know Charlotte or Greensboro or Norfork or Richmond or NoVA or even Roanoke would get it done.
Yeah, honestly I can’t imagine a roundabout there, but that’s what progressive engineers like @atl_transplant help figure out. 
I’m sure that a big chunk of the issue at six forks road is partly to blame on induced demand–That it’s relatively easy (low cost) to drive through the area. Another example would be McDowell and Dawson north to south through downtown, which should absolutely be disincentivized with less lanes and slower design speeds so more drivers choose 440.
If it became quite troublesome to drive through North hills on six forks road (and consequently much more rewarding for bike/ped), people would find other routes to reach their destination, including going north up to 540 and then around to the west for example if someone is cutting through North hills to get to Cary.
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Bring the speed limit down to 25 on 6 forks from Strickland Rd to 440 (hearing the groan already).
5 miles between Strickland Rd and Ramblewood.
@45mph 6.67 mins
@35ph 8.57 mins
@30mph 10 mins
@25mph 12 mins
@20mph 15 mins
Dropping the speed wouldn’t even add a full 6 minutes to this route assuming the full route was 45mph.
Between W. South St and W. Lane St about .8 miles (which the current speed limit is 35)
@45mph 1.07mins
@35mph 1.37mins
@30mph 1.6 mins
@25mph 1.92mins
@20mph 2.4mins
Even if we drop the speed from the existing 35 to 20, it wouldn’t take even a minute longer. I know 20mph is a stretch, but the point is that dropping the speed does so much safety wise for pedestrians, bicyclists, and even cars (getting rear ended along with the paperwork sucks).
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You’d have to redesign the road to make people drive more slowly. Road design has way more to do with how fast people actually drive than a sign does.
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how much more dense can NH get? im not an expert on how the city zones and rezones but if the SFH neighborhoods surrounding NH arent going anywhere soon will the market just start to push stuff elsewhere? increased density down at atlantic ave means a bike ride to north hills perhaps? if the triangle town mall begins to fail in its current iteration is that a potential spot for more modification or mixed use restructuring?
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This may also push traffic to alternate routes (based on mapping algos) which may have a negative impact on those streets.
I’d like the same to happen to Dawson/McDowell downtown but you have the beltway to take the rerouted traffic.
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Not to add to the grumblings of drivers (I’m a huge pedestrian proponent BTW), but as a parent of kids at Carroll Middle, I drive through here every school day to drop off the kidos. Their bus comes at 6:08 in the morning and isn’t a great option to get them to school. There is a HUGE traffic issue with the intersection of Rowan and Six Forks. We typically zig zag through the neighborhood to make a right hand turn into the carpool lanes of the school, but the limiting factor is the stoplight at Six Forks. Only 10-12 cars can collect between the exit of the school and the intersection. The carpool line backs up and you literally can’t move until the light cycles. Repeat, repeat, repeat… Kids are late for class b/c the traffic backs up so bad. Some parents drop off their kids on the wrong side of the street (against school instructions), so in addition to all the cars, you also have kids trying to cross the road as well. It is a nightmare. Thankfully this is my last year for a while until my youngest gets to 6th grade.
TLDR, this whole area is a nightmare from a driver AND pedestrian experience (in the mornings anyway).
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I have quite obviously already drank the Kool-Aid, but I’m going to leave this here to see if anyone else wants it.
We need not be so concerned of making improvements to our built environment that make places more productive outside of a car, for fear of creating congestion. We need to be more concerned with creating more value in the places we’ve already built, which often means taking infrastructure away from drivers.
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I just about ran over some kids yesterday on Rowan after dropping mine off. A few got dropped off on the wrong side of Rowan and darted across without looking. Had to slam my brakes. If I had been one of those distracted drivers on my phone, I probably would have hit one.
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EXACTLY!!! (extra characters)
A congested road clogged with cars that don’t move is safer for kids walking across the street.
If the school doesn’t recommend parents drop off their kids on the opposite side of the road, then what do they recommend for kids who walk to school and have to cross that same road? Wouldn’t a crossing guard solve this problem?
Parents dropping off their kids enmasse is a problem creator. If buses are arriving too damn early to pick up the kids, then that’s what needs to be addressed IMO. I took the bus to school all the way through high school but can’t ever remember getting picked up as early as 6:08 in the morning. That’s just insane: especially for younger kids who are more vulnerable in the pre-dawn darkness.
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There is usually a crossing guard at the intersection of Six Forks and Northbrook to allow kids to cross over to Carroll Middle School, FWIW. Others could be added as needed at other intersections, but there would need to a lot of forewarning to drivers so they know to expect it.
I found it interesting that at my daughter’s elementary school (Root) they only have 3 buses (this year and last from my POV) to service the entire school. There are only 3 routes for the approx 477 students. At about 26 seats per bus, ASSUMING the buses are full, that’s only 16% of the students that use it. 
There is a small group that walk to and from school but not hard to think 3/4 of the students are picked up and dropped off by car.
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Our kids do ride the bus home in the afternoons, but the 6:08 bus pick up in the morning is unrealistic for a couple of 13 year olds…
On the other hand, our second grader was “reassigned” to a new school by WCPSS, even though the previous school was closer to our home. The imaginary line dividing the schools is literally down the street in front of our house. Since he is now outside of his assigned school, he is no longer eligible for the bus, though the houses literally across the street from us are still in his original district. We have spoken with the school and the vice principal is helping us resolve the issue/get a “new” stop across the street from us so he can ride the bus again. The school system doesn’t make it easy on parents, and busing is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just got this from the princpal:
I wanted to take a moment and reiterate carpool procedures during arrival and dismissal. All traffic must enter the carpool loop at the 2nd entrance on Rowan. You may NOT take a left into the carpool loop. Traffic will back up to Six Forks and stop moving. You must go down Rowan and turn around in the cul-de-sac to then make a RIGHT into the carpool loop. Also, many families are dropping students off on Rowan or at the bank across from the school. Please do not do this. It is not safe . Also, stopping in front of the school on Rowan, dropping your child, and making a 3-point turn not only blocks traffic, but puts your child in an unsafe situation. It is not safe for students to walk through the parking lot and cross the carpool lane. STOP doing this. I recognize that everyone has somewhere to be. I recognize that the carpool lane is long. Please adhere to the guidelines we have created to keep your child safe. If everyone is following expectations, it will settle down and move quickly. Thank you for your attention to this.
Pretty sad that a school principal has to remind parents not to put their own children in danger of being run over by cars
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Don’t forget the infirmed, disabled, and elderly.
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It would seem to me that there needs to be some rethinking on this entire issue and that the emphasis needs to be on reducing the number of cars, not enabling more of them.
The system needs a better bus plan, and a better arrival plan for students who do come by car. If in fact some kids actually walk to school, how does the school even know if you dropped your kids off a couple of blocks away (not visible to the school) and they then walked the rest of the way? It would also seem to me that identifying a network of auxiliary drop-off places in the school’s walkshed is an idea to explore.
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You’d need a good bit of Kane’s ROW to be able to get the radius big enough for a functional multi-lane Roundabout here. I really hope the end game of all the rezoning back and forth is trying to force Kane to make Six Forks safer for peds through his district. Even landscaping, median refuge islands, tighter radii etc will give the illusion that you need to be going slower through this area rather than current conditions which just feel like a freeway approach.
Even a dedicated mid-block crossing here would help. You’d have a ped signal and median refuge plus no worry about turning traffic etc so it’d be safer than crossing at the intersection. Even though I think he needs to build a ped bridge, and he can put his name on it in lights whatever else, just get it done.
The big problem with Six Forks, Capital, Creedmoor, and Wake Forest Roads (or any of our N-S routes) is that there’s no other options. They are our main and only ways - compared to other cities and their freeways. The ugly truth is that if the Capital Blvd “upgrade” is done correctly with plenty of ped and transit integration, these other N-S routes will no longer be used as pass-throughs. Also, as much as it sucks, we can’t go back and remove the land use that’s been built over the past 50 years so if we channel most through traffic onto one corridor, we can make the most of the rest of the corridors which I think is a win at the end of the day for everyone. Unfortunately, as we stand today, Wake Forest, and N Raleigh exurbs are going to keep growing meaning Capital will keep getting worse and more and more people will bail to the other roads and once they’re so bad they’ll start using neighborhood roads. It’s kind of like cutting off your finger to save your hand in this case.
Once that’s done, less people will be on Six Forks and Wake Forest roads and we can treat and design them as streets instead of roads since less people will ditch Capital Blvd during peak times.
As John pointed out as well, you could put 25 mph speed limit signs up every block, but without changing the design that will mean absolutely nothing. Lane widths were also mentioned, but I think they’re already around 11’ and you can’t legally go much lower than that. You can get away with 10’ in Downtowns and in extreme situations, but other than that the Fire Department and other entities raise hell.
Speaking of Dawson / McDowell, I’d love to see a Streetlight (Origin-Destination software) study to see how many people are fully passing through from Beltline to Beltline. I think the % would actually be rather lower than most people expect. As Downtown grows, I think those two streets will also be congested and a thorn in our sides but we’re still better off Downtown congestion wise than practically any other large city I can think of. We really need to give it a slower feeling design though to make crossing at every light feel safer and make sure nobody comfortably goes faster than 20-25 mph.
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