by Leo Suarez

Possible $37 Million Bond Referendum For Transit On The Way

$37 million for Transportation improvements are being discussed for Raleigh and may be on this year’s October ballot. Sidewalk improvements, station upgrades, and greenway projects are just a few on the long list here. Downtown Raleigh would see some improvements if this is passed.

The list of projects that may get funded are below, starting first with downtown related ones, and how much of the pie each one would get. ($ in millions)

  • Preliminary engineering: Blount/Person corridor planning $0.25
  • Moore Square facility improvements $3.50
  • Rosengarten Greenway $0.50
  • South/Lenoir two-way conversion $2.00
  • City initiated new sidewalk $4.75
  • Transit corridor improvements (shelters & benches) $0.750
  • Tryon Road widening & realignment $1.8
  • Resurfacing Program $10.05
  • Petition projects $3.00
  • Sidewalk repair reserve $4.00
  • Streetscape: Hillsborough: Gardner to Rosemary $1.00
  • Walnut Creek Greenway – New Hope Road to Neuse River $3.20
  • Lumley/Westgate Road corridor (greenway & bike lane) $2.20

A public hearing about this referendum should be announced within the coming weeks.

We’ve discussed greenways coming through downtown before and the Rosengarten piece is a crucial connector from south of downtown into the warehouse district.

The Lenoir and South Street two-way conversion stretches the previous two-way conversion, completed in 2008, to the east and west out of downtown. For Lenoir Street:

  • Two-way conversion from Wilmington Street to East Street. This makes Lenoir two-way from Boylan Heights to South Park.
  • Sharrows from Dawson Street to East Street.

For South Street:

  • Two-way conversion from South Saunders Street to Dawson Street.
  • Two-way conversion from Wilmington Street to East Street. Both conversions make South two-way from Boylan Heights to South Park.
  • Striped bicycle lanes along South Street from South Saunders Street to East Street.

The description of the work for the two streets also mentions, “modification of traffic signals, turn lane improvements, installation of new pedestrian head signals, crosswalks, and raised landscaped medians.” The western side of South Street is pretty wide so medians would be an easy fit.

Source: N.C. Capital Area MPO, Roadway projects

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6 Comments

  1. Sounds great. Good luck getting people to pay for it in this economy though. I would in a second, but a lot of people hear “the government is taking more of my money?!” and it stops right there.

  2. Personally, I would love to see more sidewalks – mostly referring to Raleigh outside downtown – and surely conversion of some streets from one-way to two-way. Bicycle lanes will be great, provided they are not randomly done all over Raleigh; good connectivity is important.

  3. This would be a great idea in a different economy. I am pretty sure that 37m can be used in a different way that would have a bigger impact in the long run, such as creating jobs, and keeping jobs.

  4. Well it’s not like these programs WON’T be creating jobs. It will be putting people to work implementing the construction aspects of the proposal and traffic and sidewalk improvements can’t be bad for businesses.

  5. When is the city going to get around to buying some more buses so we can start having greater frequency of trips? A lot of the buses are packed these days, and it would be good to have the buses travel every 20 minutes during peak hours and every 30 minutes during off peak hours. And more people would start riding the buses because they would be seen as more reliable than in the past.

    But, I am all for building more bus shelters around the city. Let’s get some out in West Raleigh.

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