That reads like some standard ‘got mine, GTFO’ Oakwood response to me…
Hopefully the bike / ped improvements are worth the ‘snarling traffic ensured by this needless update upsetting the fabric of the neighborhood’ (sarcasm). I’m looking forward to the roundabouts north of here and the traffic calming should be welcome by everyone on the ground in the district (eventually).
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If anything, I’d expect people to be pissy about the reduction of street parking in the N Person district driving visitors back into the neighborhood to search for free parking.
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Shhhh… don’t give them any more ideas of things to complain about
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Opportunity to provide feedback on NCDOT services
2023 NC Statewide Customer Service Survey
https://nctransportsurvey.org/
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I made sure to tell them that it’s about time we started building I-640 and I-740 as well.
640 would reach out to Burlington in the west and Wilson in the east, and 740 would circle the entire state.
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Am I reading NCDOT’s 2023 budget right in that they have allocated only ~0.01% ($790k) of the budget for bike transportation? It looks like even ferries are allocated ~1% ($58m)!
Something to bring up in the survey
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As a counter to that, bikes are a nice-to-have with low-to-nonexistent state upkeep while ferries are a need-to-have for some coastal communities with serious operational costs.
Something like 7.5% of NCDOT’s $6.4B budget gets spent on non-highway modes, which includes bike/ped, transit, rail, aviation, AND ferries together. So the pie slice is definitely pretty small, but it’s not just bikes that get the short end of the stick. Everything is vastly underfunded relative to cars.
Bike (and pedestrian) transportation is especially underfunded at the state level because of a provision in the Strategic Transportation Investments law from 2013 that guides transportation funding and prioritization. NCDOT is barred by state law from funding standalone bike/ped projects at the state level, so these projects have to fight for other funding sources, primarily local and federal. There’s been some recent efforts to change this, and a few bills have been filed in the NCGA that would address the issue, but with the current political composition of the NCGA it seems unlikely to change anytime soon.
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New flyover video for 540. Let’s finish this up first.
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Ok, you might be a major geek if you sit through that whole video while eating your breakfast. And yes, I am looking at me. Thanks for the post @TedF
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The size, sprawl, and cost of this project continues to blow my mind.
Think if we had put this money on the commuter rail project…
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I can’t get upset about this one, it’s obviously going to be hugely important as the region expands.
We could get every transit wish we ever wanted and suburbs/exurbs are still going to sprawl to a certain degree - much as we clown on Boltman for thinking EVERYONE wants two acres, chain restaurants, and a riding mower, a lot of people do want that, and they’re going to need highways.
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I’m not a highway construction expert but I would be amazed if they had that section complete by next year. This is the NCDOT timeline for the project off their website FWIW. I live out here in the Apex/Holly Springs area where this is being constructed and as @Kanatenah points out the size of this expansion is huge. Some of the work they’ve done on Holly Springs Rd/Kildaire Farm area to make future exits is 
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City Council made a move at yesterday afternoon’s meeting to rework the streetscape over here to move this bridge along a bit. The move seems to select option 2 which utilizes a roundabout at Barrett and would set the bridge to cross Big Branch / the undeveloped lot over the Beltline…
Now just gotta dig $30+mil outta the couch cushions…
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taste of honey? char char char
As a counter to that, there’s a lot more that could benefit from increased bike and pedestrian funding instead of allocating to Ferrys. The population living in poverty in the city of Raleigh is around 60,565 (469502 population x rate of poverty at 12.9%). I didn’t really know what to compare it to as far as the needed communities go. The population of the Outer Banks is 65,744 (Link), but I don’t believe the Outer Banks near Nags Head really has a ferry so we really don’t need to include them which would lower the population count. Keep in mind I’m only mentioning the city of Raleigh’s poverty population.
Providing pedestrian and biking infrastructure to the communities where the poverty population is lower would benefit those communities and families so they don’t need to rely on an expensive car that requires expensive maintenance. It would also benefit those with disabilities or seniors who may be able to travel on wheel mobility scooters.
The cost of the ferry could be increased to those who are not residents. I wouldn’t want to remove the ferry from those communities, but tourists could take more of the ferry costs as it’s really not that expensive. To travel from Swan Quarter to Okracoke is about 30 miles. To take a car it costs $15. That’s quite cheap for a ferry ride that lasts 2.5 hours.
I only mention the post seemed to promote a reason against providing more budget for bike infrastructure. Bikes aren’t the only ones I’ve seen using the lanes. I see runners in them as well as pedestrians in areas where there are no sidewalks.
I’m not saying to remove funding from ferrys, I’m just saying let’s add a bit more to biking because it could be quite beneficial.
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New webpage + survey just dropped for CAMPO’s Southeast Area Study.
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Capital Boulevard Upgrade
One more lane bro
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In fairness, Capitol is a pretty miserable driving experience, and the only way to get to plenty of places.
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I’ll agree with that, Capital is one of the worst, but the lack of lanes isn’t it’s main fault.
If Capital Blvd was designed like Cary Parkway where every single business doesn’t have immediate entry and exits directly into traffic and instead you pull into developments that facilitate several business. A lot would change, but that seems almost impossible the way Capital has evolved.
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