Before Buying a car I walked down this road to get to DTR to get to work every day. and on some weekends,
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Get an ebike! It is the great equalizer for my wifeās biking. She now crushes me on the hills when I used to wait for her at the top. If you wants to try one out let me know and we can double date bike ride to Gateway Plaza. We are up to 2 ebikes now.
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Itās just crazy how āout in the countryā these photos look, especially for a location thatās right on top of downtown.
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Hey cool! That would be fun. Still havenāt been up there to gateway.
Rightā¦ Especially with the skyline view you get at the crest of Dix hill on this country bumpkin road.
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Didnāt you get the Juiced brand bikes? How are you liking them? My son will be getting his driverās license in less than 2 years and Iām thinking instead of getting him a car maybe I should get an e-bike and let him use the car.
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I got the juiced crosscurrent S2 which is my commuter and level 3 (goes up to 28mph) Ebike. But, then I also saw a super sale on last years model of the rad city step through (for about $950) https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/radcity-step-thru
So I bought that too, and it is officially my wifes Ebike.
If it is just the two of us then my wife takes the juiced bike and is actually faster than me instead of me usually needing to wait for her at the top of hills. Then if we have friends over we will put the ladies on Ebikes and have guys take regular hybrid and road bikes.
We got some coffee at the new BREW saturday morning and my wifes friend road back home with coffee in one hand and using the throttle for the juiced bike to get up hills with very little work. Was pretty awesome!
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Funny you should askā¦ from last weekās city council work session: https://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/files/CEAQW96977FE/$file/20220510RDOTworksessionsidewalksPresentation.pdf
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the city is making progress on sidewalks - thereās just such a vast backlog from the city not building any sidewalks as the city grew in the 70s-90s that it will take a lot to get them on every single road (and rising construction/material costs probably arenāt helping)
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With respect to the aboretum, I used to live 5 minutes from there and walked down Beryl all the time for that and for the fair. It always felt safe but thereās a desire path from Method to the bridge, which doesnāt work well for strollers. Buried deep in the cityās plans thereās something about a ālinear parkā to span the whole length of Beryl road. But I donāt see anything about that in recent plans.
@haus_of_chad , one recommendation from that session memo that stuck out to me:
Recommendation 2: Pilot lower cost alternatives to traditional sidewalk construction.
Many local street contexts with low speed and volumes have additional width within the
roadway that can be reallocated to sidewalks. This approach can have the dual benefits of
traffic calming through street narrowing and minimizing right-of-way acquisition and cost.
Staff is continuing to evaluate alternative options based on context, safety, accessibility, and
future maintenance considerations.
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I get that but 11 million bucks doesnāt seem like a ton of money for such a vast problem.
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Yeah, Iām glad they are doing something, but the lack of Sidewalks in areas that should be high priority is appalling. They need to be doing much, much more.
When we we house shopping a few years ago lack of Sidewalks were pretty much a deal breaker. It is amazing how many neighborhoods, even ITB, donāt have sidewalks.
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FY21 and FY22 are high because thatās money from the last transportation bond referendum passed in 2017 but in a non-bond year, the city really doesnāt have much money to allocate towards capital projects when it comes to transportation
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Thatās where the economy of scale from one single contract/CA/mobilization etc. comes in, so I donāt have a problem with the city holding the in-lieu fees for a few years in areas that are flipping rapidly. But I can definitely see how that can become a problem over time, too.
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I just donāt understand how a city, that is growing like crazy, that is cited in all the internet lists of ābest placesā to live and raise a family - doesnāt have the money or canāt figure out how to build a friggin sidewalk. Itās city building 101. The problem is that even to this day - people around here simply donāt value sidewalks. Weād rather not have them if it means raising raising taxes to fund them.
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Trees. People fight them just to save trees.
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people love moving here because the cost of living and property taxes are lower but there certainly is a reason for thatā¦
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People happily chip in for sidewalks in their own neighborhood, but most residents spend all their time outside those neighborhoods driving from place to place, and do most of their shopping in auto-oriented shopping centers.
Hard for them to see the benefit without it already positively affecting their lives. Bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.
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This is called HOA fees not exactly public infrastructure.
Right, which is my point. People value sidewalks, but only if they know theyāll actually use them. Thatās the hurdle sidewalk funding (and transit funding in general) has to get over.
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