Of course the sad thing about the Salesforce Transit Center was the closure for a year to fix the structure before the thing had barely opened.
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Durham City Council will decide on a team for the old Police HQ site on November 4th. (The task force had previously recommended another scheme by Duda Paine + Fallon, but the council deferred their final decision). Perkins and Will + Akridge unveiled a revised proposal today: https://www.505westchapelhillstreet.com/
Itâs got a lot of fantastic qualities that hit on hot topics that we discuss here: placemaking, affordable housing (80 units!), honoring our history while looking forward, and inclusivity by design. Definitely worth exploring the website.
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Charlotte is different than Raleigh. Itâs much larger and itâs centralized. So itâs much easier to justify a rail line there. I get your point but I think itâs misplaced angst to compare the two cities this way.
DTR does have some significant action:
- 22 story FNB finishing up
- 19 story 301H Pendo office
- 10 story Block 83 #2
- 9 story Smokey Ph2 office
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âDevelopment in South End has taken off since the light rail opened in 2007â
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article236813373.html
We could start with a short line downtown to NH. It would do wonders to the density and perception of the area. Then again we are already on the BRT pathâŚ
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BRT vs LightRailâŚLMAO 
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A transit line to NH would go through a lot of old neighborhoods which will get expensive to even start such a project.
I think it would be easier to just ask the developers of Downtown South to consider leaving a non-road corridor through the area that eventually Raleigh could build a transit line through. Whatever that would be: light rail, open trench subway, tram. Why arenât we already asking for this now? It seems so obvious.
âHey Kane or whoever, DoSo sounds great. Hey, what if you build into your plans a straight green way down the middle of the project? Maybe it could be big enough to also support a transit line?â
Gonna be honest here BRT is still just a bus. If youâre going to build public transportations build it right the first time. Itâs the same issue with malls, why do some malls fail while other malls are doing okay? Because no one wants to spend time being inside a cheap, crappy mall they want to go inside the nicer malls.
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Exactly I agree with you guys BRT is not bold enough and has a perception problem compared to light rail
The route to NH does not have to be straight like the crow flies. It could follow capital, six forks or 440. Then extend it to Crabtree and south to Downtown South in the future. Then add the East/West line etc
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I think it would have to be elevated rail at least DTR to NoHi.
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Thatâs easy, we donât have anyâŚ
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Lol, what I meant was why couldnât we have done that? Other than GM, Churchill downs and the university, there really isnât anything in Louisville. They even have a much bigger downtown than we do.
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They were a much larger city pre WW2.
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You have to consider Charlotte at the time they started LR, in order for such a comparison to be fair.
I actually think Raleigh is in a much better position than Charlotte was when it started its rail initially. The presence of three large universities with a baked in nondriving population and multiple downtowns in the triangle gives a rail system easy nodes to link up right off the bat.
Charlotteans hate to hear it but Hillsborough street has a lot more people living and working right there in an urban spoke, than South End had in 2006. Having the largest university in the state just two miles from downtown, instead of a tertiary university on the outskirts of town, gives Raleigh some major perks.
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Iâm in Charlotte and Iâve seen about 15 cranes, at least 9 tower cranes and about 7 of those are along graham street and legacy union
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If the line ran north-south, which Iâm assuming is the thought here, it would have to cut through an existing residential neighborhood and a cemetery and get under MLK and cross the Rocky Branch Trail and a railroad to get to downtown. Sounds expensive and technically daunting.
OR, hear me out here, we could just run bus rapid transit along the existing road that has tons of unused capacity and it could sail into downtown, right along a bunch of other promising stops, and then connect with the cityâs existing transit hub.
I realize a lot of people on this forum want Raleigh to build a light rail network because light rail light rail Charlotte has light rail OMG we need light rail too, but light rail is actually astonishingly expensive, whereas BRT runs on the roads that conveniently already exist, and Wilmington Street is probably the single easiest corridor in all of Raleigh to implement it without excessive BRT creep.
There are really good reasons why the people who do this stuff for a living think that BRT is the best option for our transit needs.
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Or, hear me out here,⌠LRT & BRTâŚ
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No plan survives first contact with the enemy. In this case, bad Raleigh drivers. 
Just look into all the issues RVA has been having, including one gruesome death just about two weeks ago.
Came across the Downtown Cary new park master plan. Downtown Cary Park Master Plan Animation - YouTube and Box
A lot of cool features and similar topographic features to Devereaux Meadows Park area. Would love to see a lot of the same ideas!
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I could spend a whole day looking at the little people but that giant cardinal and lazy river? Are those actually happening? Sigh⌠Get it together Raleigh, Cary is kicking your butt
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