Steel rises out of the ground at the Justice Center construction site at Salisbury and Martin Streets.
Pic of the Week
I posted the concept plan for the Moore Square Redesign over at The Raleigh DLA site. This was the one that was used during the public workshops last week. Jump over and click the image for the full view.
Moore Square Concept Plan Released – Raleigh DLA
Were You At Hopscotch This Weekend?
Did you hear about the Hopscotch Music Festival that took place in Raleigh this weekend? I was out each night for lots of club shows and overheard a few people that were out of the loop and could not get into places because they were not part of the event. Woops. Although I’m sure that happens everywhere.
Anyway, I want to thank Jake Seaton at the MyNC Music blog for letting me take photos during the event. See the links below for my photos and I’m sure this week, more and more will pop up on the various blogs and your other sources of triangle coverage.
Oh Snap: Hopscotch Night 1 — dtraleigh.com
Oh Snap: Hopscotch Night 2 — dtraleigh.com
Oh Snap: Hopscotch Night 3 — dtraleigh.com
So now that the fantastic event is over, here’s looking forward to it again next year.
Weekend Exposure: Tetris of Hannover
Tetris of Hannover by dtraleigh, on Flickr
Moore Square Redesign Public Workshop Tomorrow
Tomorrow, September 9th, 2010, the city of Raleigh is hosting two workshops on the Moore Square Redesign. This workshop aims at getting your input for the draft master plan that is currently in the works. There are two sessions that you can attend:
- Afternoon session from 1-4 pm
- Night session from 7-10 pm
The workshop will be at Cobblestone Hall, which is located on Wolfe Street, or inside the historic City Market building. Registration is not required so show up to get more details on the project, give your feedback, and gawk at the interior of the City Market building.
You can see some of the winning designs from Chris Counts Studio on Flickr but the current design is slightly different then what you see there. If you take a look at the picture above, that is the model of Moore Square that was shown to us at the Public Leadership Group, which I am a part of.
A new feature for Moore Square will be the large lawn around the center of the square. According to their research, the design firm claims that there is a lot of green space in Moore Square already but with so many paths and mulch, the green space is cut up and divided into small sections. One large, grassy lawn would be more flexible and can allow visitors to take part in more activities.
The design also incorporates some small hills and/or smooth rocks on one side of the lawn. In response to comments about making the square more play-friendly for children, Chris Counts decided to go with a natural playground of hills and, what I’ll call, “natural obstacles” rather then a traditional playground of plastic slides and a jungle gym.
These, as well as more ideas for the square, are still up in the air and public comments are needed to help mold the Moore Square master plan. Tomorrow’s workshop should be a good one.
Pic of the Week
Looking straight up the tall brick tower. The old Raleigh Water Tower is for sale.
High Speed Rail Noise versus Freight Noise
I watched some of the city council meeting last night and train noise was a pretty hot issue, one of the bullets the Five Points residents were firing off as to why they were against the NC3 option. What I hope, very much hope, is that the good citizens in the Glenwood-Brooklyn neighborhood and the Five Points neighborhood are against the noise coming from a high-speed train and do not think it sounds the same as a freight train.
If you are not caught up on the high-speed rail corridor debate, hit the archives tagged SEHSR here.
I support the NC3 option, with the added removal of the Hargett Street bridge, and want to wait for more details about this new NC4 option before I even touch it. I think some more investigation with this noise issue is needed because Norfolk-Southern, who is against the NC3 option, has definitely helped organize the citizens in the previously mentioned neighborhoods against new trains going through here at all. They are obviously concerned about their interested, very little or not at all concerned about ours.
A comparison has to be made here; freight versus passenger trains. In my opinion, these higher capable speed trains WILL sound different then the freight trains that go through there. This comes from my experience riding and being around trains in Asia. The passenger trains are built better probably because people will be on board and not cargo. You don’t get the clatter and clacking noise from freight trains. Hopefully NCDOT can provide better data on noise because I thought they did a very poor job answering the council’s questions about train noise last night.
Here are some random videos that are relevant to this topic. You can make up your own mind.
Freight versus High Speed rail Noise Impact on the Frankfurt-Cologne line.
Diesel cross-country train going through Shawford Station
A very quiet electric locomotive leaving a station.
Pic of the Week
Bus shelter on Morgan Street taken with my camera phone.
A bus shelter has popped up on Morgan Street at the R-Line stop near the intersection with Dawson Street. Bus shelters were on the to-do list for Capital Area Transit so hopefully more are on the way, especially with the colder season just a few months away.