New Bern Avenue TOD Is Now In Place

Rezoning case Z-92-22, or better The New Bern Avenue Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) case, is now in the books. Or “on the map” as I prefer to see these things. The final votes took place in July and I wanted to kind of wrap up these changes as the city council has been working it since January of this year. Above is a screen grab from iMaps where you can see the applied TOD zoning in East Raleigh.

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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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New Bern Transit-Oriented Development Plans Start To Move Forward

Above is the video for the March 5, 2024 City Council evening session where council revisits the topic of rezoning properties along New Bern Avenue in an attempt to support the now under construction Bus Rapid Transit route. It’s actually a more manageable 40 or so minutes to watch so I encourage anyone to check it out or watch it directly on YouTube here.

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2024 Will Be a Pivotal Year For Raleigh’s Transit Future. We Must Support Transit-Oriented Development.

In November 2023, the first of four bus-rapid transit (BRT) routes, years in the making, broke ground. The first route out the gate will be the eastern route. This one services the New Bern Avenue corridor between downtown, WakeMed, and parts around New Hope Road. We just might be riding around in articulated buses some time in 2025.

The increase in bus service is finally happening, kickstarted back in 2016, after Wake County voters decided to increase the sales tax in order to fund expanded transit. The second half of the transit journey comes with the accompanying land use and I think 2024 will be the year Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) becomes a household phrase. (or at least to all you readers out there)

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The Downtown North-South Greenway Connector Overview

I spent some time this week with a survey from the city about possible plans to reconfigure North West Street between Peace Street and Wade Avenue that could accommodate bike lanes, walking paths, and a different parking layout. If that excites you, jump right on over to that survey here to let them know what you think. If I still got you, I wanted to revisit the plans for more bicycle infrastructure along West Street, how it’s going, and what we might expect in the future.

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Volunteer Group Helps Make Downtown Raleigh Sidewalks More Accessible

lowered curb and crosswalk on city intersection
A crosswalk in downtown Raleigh

All throughout the cities of North Carolina and South Carolina, the development boom times have really kicked in within the last few decades. In most cases, this new growth in the South has led to car-centric development where driving a vehicle is almost required to navigate your city. For those able to drive safely, this has become part of Southern culture. However, not everyone can or wants to drive for their daily tasks. Our sidewalk networks, when present, pick up the slack here. For pedestrians with mobility challenges, high-quality sidewalks are a necessity.

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Mapping the New Bern TOD, NCODs, and HODs, Oh my!

I’m getting so bad at blog post titles these days. I really do apologize for that one.

What I am getting better at is working with maps and data. It’s still a work in-progress but I wanted to put out this map, shown above, related to the currently proposed New Bern Station Area Plan. You can jump into this topic over at the city’s website as well as this post from Jan 2023.

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