Yes. Millbrook was in the county system before the systems were unified. My high school was essentially 2 parts North Ridge + other far north Raleigh subdivisions filled with IBM + Nortel children from the north and 1 part Brentwood + other middle class neighborhoods up North Boulevard (pre Capital Blvd days).
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@atl_transplant @OakCityDylan My armchair estimates say that you need to zoom out more. Once 540 is completed, those coming into town from outside the region, will go around us using 540 instead of going directly through.
Just a guess though but while NCDOT sees an increase in traffic in the future on Capital, Iād be interested to see if a completed 540 actually contributes to an opposite outcome.
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I think it wonāt have a huge effect since we donāt seem to have the complete through traffic that most major cities have since 40 doesnāt really have any important immediate connections. I think completing 540 will have more of an effect on that terrible stretch of 40 in garner and some local roads in south / east Raleigh but thatās about it. Maybe as Dawson / McDowell become even more congested more and more will be convinced to use 440 / 540 as their main routes instead of cutting through downtown.
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Hereās a personal example - I used to work near Crabtree and lived out off Ten-Ten Rd near the Lake Wheeler interchange and it was often essentially the same amount of time and a much more pleasurable drive to navigate the interior streets versus the Beltline to commute back and forth at legal speeds.
Even now, I live just north of North Hills and I have friends who still live in the Ten-Ten vicinity and my deciding factor for route is similar - especially at those certain pressure points of the day (*during normal times). While I am often in DTR with high frequency to do things, I also migrate through DTR via Dawson / McDowell for those visits half a dozen times or more a month and you can likely triple that in months when Iām going to the NC Farmers Market. I support the (Daw / McD) road diet and traffic calming measures (and would welcome the pedestrian benefits when enjoying strolls about downtown) and they likely would not change my patterns of migration greatly but my hopes would be they may deter others to use that same time to go faster in another directionā¦
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I live in Garner and my office is on Six Forks. Even though 440 is faster I chose to go through downtown just to save the mileage on my car. 6-7 miles each way adds up quick; also, I am nosy and want to see what is going on downtown!! haha!
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I definitely feel you lol I honestly will detour through downtown a lot of times just to see whatās going on and for the vibe of driving through a downtown. Hopefully there arenāt too many of us!
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This would make a cool study to see at what point people would use 440 instead of going through Downtown.
At the same time, you donāt want to make downtown so congested that people are deterred from even coming or it starts harming business.
Or killing people. Safety and walk ability is my primary focus.
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The offsetting the walk signal to start 3 seconds before the green helps. I think something that could help as downtown becomes more dense is having more pedestrian scrambles where the peds can cross diagonally or any way they choose while all traffic lights remain red and have their own signal phase
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Lol I was going to post the exact same thing. I never need to drive from north of downtown to south of downtown, but if I did, I would want to check out downtown stuff going on!
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Thereās one of those that I use in South Beach. Itās red for cars all ways for about 90 seconds. Those are the best for busy intersections.
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If I had to go from North Raleigh to South Raleigh/Garner on a regular basis, I would always go through downtown. Going around would be a hassle.
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Does this blog have a poll feature? Letās take a poll.
Yes, click on the gear icon and there is a Build Poll feature.
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That is a super cool feature! Thanks for that infoā¦ 
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Thanks Leo, could have figured that out, embarrassed, lol
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Iāve been tellin you guys. 
https://www.instagram.com/p/CnXW7jHOYZY/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
I realize this isnāt necessarily the right thread for this but I was tying it in to an earlier post.
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Sorry, I donāt Instagram. 
Anyway to provide your information any other way?
It should be public and not require an account, no?
Just a post by Bearded Bee that they won the WRAL Voterās Choice Best Brewery.
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