Category / Featured

by Leo Suarez

Checking in on Fayetteville Street at the end of 2024

It’s been talked about all over the place that Fayetteville Street has still not bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. From my point of view, the street does seem to be in transition as a once office-heavy corridor adjusts to a region that has embraced work from home culture. I’m optimistic and am showing patience these days, believing that the street will find it’s way over time. That’s why I’m happy to read this article from Axios Raleigh highlighting the first glimpses of change taking place on North Carolina’s Main Street.

I thought it could be fun to go block-by-block and describe what’s to offer on the ground floor as of the end of 2024. The more places to visit, the more people there should be. That, in the end, adds to the vitality of the street.

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by Leo Suarez

Taking a Look at the GoRaleigh Frequent Network

A new bus route, the #9 Hillsborough, started service in September of this year, offering 15-minute frequency between downtown and NC State seven days a week. This got me thinking about other bus routes that operate every 15 minutes—our definition of “high frequency” here in Raleigh.

I’m guessing you probably didn’t hear about this new route as you don’t use GoRaleigh. I feel confident with the claim as it’s estimated that only 2% of the Raleigh population uses the GoRaleigh bus system. (I may be off by a few percentage points but the point is, it’s pretty low) However, as Bus Rapid Transit grabs headlines these days, it’s the small details that are going unnoticed and there’s a case to reconsider GoRaleigh as part of your mobility toolkit.

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by Leo Suarez

My Summer 2024 E-Bike Retrospective

Raleigh is Poised for a Leap in Cycling Activity Thanks to Electric Bicycles

This is my current thinking after my family purchased a pair of e-bikes in Spring 2024. After putting almost 400 miles on them between my wife and me, I’m convinced we’re closer to more bicycle adoption in Raleigh. If the infrastructure continues to improve, the numbers will keep climbing.

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by Leo Suarez

Dive Into the Final Report That Will Reinvigorate Downtown Raleigh

Recently, the Downtown Raleigh Alliance (DRA) released the final draft of the Downtown Raleigh Economic Development Strategy, the ongoing study that hopes to revitalize urban Raleigh post-pandemic. We talked about part 1 earlier this year, with a heavy focus on Fayetteville Street, and now we have the complete report which lays out new ideas and a bold vision for downtown. Here are the many ways to dive right into it:

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by Leo Suarez

Downtown Amphitheater Move Deep Dive

The Red Hat Amphitheater turned out to be such a good idea that the latest chatter this Summer is all about making it bigger and better. We’ve talked about how the amphitheater was always meant to be temporary and now that the Raleigh Convention Center wants to expand, the amphitheater needs to move. For awhile, the plans to move the amphitheater were simple; put it one block to the south. However, with plans to close streets and the temptation to actually move it to Dix Park, this topic is getting more complicated.

If you’re not on the Community, you’re missing a great ongoing discussion so I encourage you to jump in on the conversation. If you’re staying here, let’s take a closer look at what we have on the table so far.

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by Leo Suarez

New Bern Avenue TOD Rezoning Summer Check-in

Embedded above (direct link here) is the video from the June 4, 2024 Raleigh City Council meeting where the latest updates and discussion took place related to the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) rezoning case for the New Bern Avenue corridor. We’ve been following this for awhile now and the rezoning case here, which sets to change the zoning for over 700 properties on or near the upcoming Bus Rapid Transit line for New Bern Avenue, is being worked on in phases. I wanted to share my notes and provide a summary of the latest.

Feel free to dive right into the video above, as it opens with a nice summary, and check out these resources on the city’s website:

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by Leo Suarez

Part One of the Fayetteville Street Economic Dev Strategy Is Out

The DRA has released the first part of their Economic Development Strategy for Fayetteville Street and the list of recommendations are quite numerous. We’ll still get even more recommendations later this year but this initial piece focuses on the central business district with Fayetteville at the center of it all.

Above is a video of a city council work session where the report’s highlights are presented to council and is a very good watch. Scott Page from Interface Studio, the consultant team on the project, gives us a very comprehensive overview of the plan so watching, or just listening, is highly recommended.

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by Leo Suarez

17 Years Ago, A Connoisseur Was Born

Wasn’t 2007 a fantastic year? We saw the iPhone. Netflix starting streaming. The Raleigh Connoisseur starts publishing blog posts. All of these things are changing the world and today is a day to celebrate one of them in particular. With 1,527 posts logged, I’m happy to report that I’m still here.

We have our community, our meetup, and this space here of course for various topics around urban planning, transit, developments, and a little food and drink. There’s so much to talk about if you follow what’s going on in Raleigh and I’m happy to keep putting these thoughts out there where I hope it fosters good discussion and makes all readers stop and think.

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