“The Triangle” seems to work
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I chose that option because there just isn’t any 3-letter abbreviation that I use for the Triangle area as a whole. I just say “the Triangle”.
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The Greater Raleigh Area. GRA. “Brah, welcome to the GRA.” /s
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I normally do that, too, honestly, but there are times when you almost have to abbreviate it that way. Think catchier hashtags, local branding, Axios Local outlets and other types of new media etc.
EDIT: I asked the same question to Reddit’s Triangle subreddit, and the results are looking different? As of writing, 91 people chose “RTP” versus 69 for “RDU”. I guess I wasn’t the only one who’s confused.
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let’s just go with 919 and skip letters altogether.
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And we could add 919 to “every-thing”! 
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But…but…but…my area code is 984… 
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Then I guess that you don’t matter. 
My point was 919 no longer encompasses the region, just like the three letter acronyms… 
I voted RDU because I think it is the best combo of describing the area and being in pretty wide use already. The Triangle or Research Triangle are okay but not three letters. For me, RTP is too limiting bc that refers to the Park proper, not the actual cities. I would like RAL to be the answer, but right now I don’t think that is sufficient for the entire area which really is multi-nodal.
My tongue in cheek answer is RAD, or RaD. For RAleigh Durham or Raleigh And Durham.
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Yeah we missed an opportunity by picking RDU over RAD for the airport.
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I agree with you and I think RDU is broader and more inclusive than RTP. But I wonder why so many people on Reddit disagree?
As of writing, this is how the poll is going over there:
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I’m going to vote “Screw the abbreviations.” I don’t see the need for it since other cities don’t have them. I don’t call San Jose SJ. It’s the South Bay. I also don’t call it the Silicon Valley although people away from it may call it that.
I don’t consider RTP to be the proper abbreviation as it’s only related to the car oriented research park. RDU would be somewhat closer but I would say it stands for Raleigh-Durham Unified area. I’d still vote for no acronym.
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Probably just the way the question is written. By referencing ‘Research Triangle’ in the question, people are probably biased toward the abbreviation that includes Research Triangle.
Guessing it would have been different if the question said ‘What 3-letter combo would you use to describe the Raleigh-Durham-Cary metro region?’ or just ‘What 3-letter combo would you use to describe the Triangle metro region?’.
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I actually noticed that problem on here, and made that change when I made that Reddit post by simply calling it “the Triangle”. I didn’t do that here, though, since some people already voted and changing the question would delete their choices.
Still, that’s true: the wording of the question could have something to do with the difference. But if “Research Triangle” were to bias people towards “RTP”, you’d think we’d see the skew in results going the other way.
Ah didn’t see that it was worded differently on Reddit. There goes my theory! 
Here’s one of those polarizing topics. I encourage everyone to chime in!
Livable Raleigh seems to be having their way with this one…
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D’oh…developers…developers…D’oh!
Survey on transportation services in NC. This is a good opportunity to tell NCDOT we want more sidewalks, bike lanes, and trains, folks:
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