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.
Continue reading →Embedded above is a pretty nice looking aerial video circling the site of The Weld which sits between South Saunders Street and Lake Wheeler Road. Currently under construction, and hard to photograph from the streets, are a pair of 20-story buildings facing Hammell Drive.
Continue reading →
Starting this week, the city is having protected bike lanes installed on West and Harrington Streets as part of the Downtown North-South Greenway Connector. This will be downtown’s first protected bike lane which connects the warehouse district to Smoky Hollow. You can already see parts of it along West, shown above.
Along West Street, bicycle traffic can start from Union Station and head toward Smoky Hollow in the protected lane until North Street. If heading the other way around, you can get back to the warehouse district riding down Harrington Street.
The placement of the lanes is also nice as there are several Citrix Cycle stations along them including Union Station, across from Morgan Street Food Hall, Hillsborough Street, and at Jones Street.
This is excellent to see as it is a foundational route that one day could connect to a greenway heading north along a Devereux Meadows park in north downtown and to a greenway to Dix Park which is to the south. The lanes should be 100% by October.
From my inbox to yours:
Salisbury Street in the government district
As part of a federal grant, the City of Raleigh is receiving funds to apply marked bicycle facilities around the city. From the city’s website to the blog:
The City of Raleigh received a $1.1 million dollar grant from the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) program to construct at least 27 miles of marked, on-road bicycle facilities. A proposed list of twenty-two bicycle projects have been selected in order of adopted bicycle plan priority and previously adopted CIP projects. The design of these projects is currently underway and the lead consultant is Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. joined by Alta Planning + Greenways, Inc. and Kittelson & Associates, Inc.
*Bicycle Pavement Marking Design Project
We’ll have to wait for the designs to see what kind of “marked, on-road bicycle facilities” will be created but $1.1 million dollars spread across 27 miles doesn’t sound like much. I expect a mix of bike lanes and sharrows.
Here are the streets being looked at within downtown.
See the link to the city’s website for more information.
I stumbled upon this new bicycle lane on Salisbury Street yesterday. The lane goes from Peace to Lane Street which, right now, is not much but the Green Square construction kind of gets in the way. In the end, the bicycle lane should continue south down Salisbury and end at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
This is the beginning of some of the priority bicycle lanes that will be installed around Raleigh and you can see the plans at RaleighPedBikeMap.com.