From the meeting this week hosted by NCDOT, the video above was being played on a loop at the Borden Building in Fred Fletcher Park Thursday evening. If you can’t see the embedded video, go here.
The video is a great watch for those following this project and construction starts on Wade Avenue first this Fall.
You can find more on the NCDOT’s project website.
Thanks to a few readers who found this aerial visualization of the Peace Street and Wade Avenue Bridge replacement project. NCDOT should start this project this summer.
For more on it, especially the Peace Street part, go here.
[UPDATE:5-26-16]
A raise of the glass goes out to Jim who made this overlay of projects on top of a screen grab from the video. Click for a larger view.
The Capital Boulevard aerial doesn’t consider the new Williams and Kane joint projects but with the announcement posted earlier this week and the Smokey Hollow LLC purchase nearby you can see some of the possible development outcomes of the new square loop.
A Johnson Street connection from Glenwood to Capital would make for a great grid of streets around the planned developments and hopefully ones in the future. Johnson at Capital could be a major entrance to Glenwood South for those coming from North Raleigh.
With the Devereux Meadow Park on one-side of Peace, the opposite side has to come at a premium due to how much traffic is funneled down Peace Street. With Peace being practically the only east-west artery in this area, I imagine the vehicle, bike, and ped counts will continue to be higher than other streets.
Capital Boulevard going over Peace Street
Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.
I recommend email readers click through to the website to see the embedded video.
During last week’s city council meeting, there was a presentation with the latest updates on the bridge replacement projects that are going to take place on Capital Boulevard. This is a topic that’s been covered here on the blog for almost five years and we’re now under a year until construction starts.
If you need to play catch up, I recommend reading about the planned ‘square loop’ design here:
In addition to the Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street being replaced, Wade Avenue at Capital is also being replaced.
If the video does not show for you, click here.
Eric Lamb, Transportation Planning Manager for the city, gave a brief overview of the latest updates of the project. Here are some notes I took:
Rendering of the bridge going over Peace Street without columns
Rendering of the bridge going over Peace Street with columns. Click for larger.
The major enhancements of each bridge primarily revolve around adding either lights or decorative columns or both. As you can see in the rendering, the columns could have public art on top of them of some sort. Only a concept is shown in the rendering not the final art piece.
Of course, the more you add, the higher the cost becomes. City staff broke it down into four available options.
Full breakdown of costs for Peace Street.
Full breakdown of costs for Wade Avenue.
Those figures make it seem like lights are a $200,000 cost per bridge. The columns come in around $400,000 per bridge.
Option 3 seemed to be, according to the light conversation, the one councilors preferred but no decisions were made at this time. There is still more work to be done to prepare an agreement with NCDOT and when those details are more solid, there will be a followup presentation. That will probably take place in a few months.
Construction will first start at Wade in July 2016 with Peace Street seeing work in July 2017. Everything should wrap up during the Summer of 2019.
On a slightly related note, I haven’t covered the Wade Avenue bridge much but I did notice this one little jewel in the renderings. Take a look at the Wade Avenue bridge design below. The right-most portion shows a greenway trail going underneath.
Rendering of the Wade Avenue bridge with columns. Click for larger.
We know that the city wants to get a greenway to go along Capital and the Pigeon House Branch Creek which is mostly buried. In the future, the creek may be opened up and we all can walk or bike along it starting from a park that sits just north of Peace Street between Capital and West Street.
The rendering suggests that there are plans to keep a connection open here at the bridge for such a future project. Good stuff!
Intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Peace Street
Here’s a project that’s moving forward after being on hold for a few years. Peace Street West, referred to as the street between West and St. Mary’s Street, is due for some streetscape improvements. This will include new sidewalks, burying of utility lines, consolidation of driveways, and other enhancements to this part of the street.
To get right into it, go straight to the project page on the city’s website: Peace Street West Streetscape
A lot of talk and focus has taken place over the last few years about improving Peace Street. The street is a major east/west thoroughfare with high traffic counts. Capital Boulevard and the railyards to the north and south have created a kind of bottleneck. No urban street grid exists in this area unfortunately.
North of Peace, the only way to cross Capital Boulevard by any mode is at the crossing where Wake Forest Road becomes Atlantic Avenue. To the south is a pair of one-way streets, Jones and Lane Streets. With so much separation and traffic counts hovering above 50,000 vehicles a day on Capital Boulevard, it’s no surprise that this area is dominated by car-centric development.
Peace Street West could be one-half of the solution as “Peace Street East” is due for some improvements also. Those are coming through the Capital Boulevard bridge rebuild and the Square Loop plan.
Diving into the Peace Street West information from the city’s project page, here are some highlights:
West Peace Street
For me, the intersection of Glenwood and Peace has always felt like a gateway to downtown Raleigh. If you are driving or walking south down Glenwood, you transition out of the Glenwood-Brooklyn neighborhood and as you approach the intersection you start to see the density, the buildings of downtown Raleigh.
The intersection also sees steady pedestrian activity so it’s a nice reminder that you’re entering a walkable, active place. The improvements here will go a long way towards transitioning single-family neighborhoods into urban walkable neighborhoods.
According to the project page, this project should be completed by Summer of 2016.
Corner of Peace and Person Streets
I recently took a walk around East Peace Street and there is just so much happening here these days. On this particular weekday morning, the sounds of construction dominate. The hum of machinery, the beeping of vehicles, the hammering of nails are just some of the things you hear if you wander around Peace, Person or Wilmington Street.
These two blocks are just mushrooming with new developments. It’s not surprising that the new construction is predominantly residential as that is the current trend.
Townhomes at Blount Street Commons
Built up now are some new townhomes and carriage homes at Blount Street Commons. A lot of land has been cleared along Person Street for even more of these.
Holy Trinity Church on Peace Street
You can now get a sense of the space that the Holy Trinity Church on Peace Street will take as the building shell is pretty much wrapped up.
Peace Street Townes
More townhomes at Peace Street Townes are moving along nicely with the entire site out of the ground now. A lot of brickwork has taken place and the first units are close to being ready.
Elan City Center apartments
The largest presence here is the Elan City Center project, a five-story apartment building with about 213 units. There isn’t any ground-floor retail here but with Seaboard Station just across the street and the non-active government district nearby there may not be a big reason for it.
I’ll be interested to see more about Elan City Center as the project kind of just popped up and I’m not sure what kind of local presence there is here. There are no plans for this on the city’s website and their website showcases it as a ‘North Carolina project’ rather than a ‘Raleigh project,’ mistakenly using Charlotte’s skyline on their website.
In a hot rental market, complacency in management is common, as I’ve heard is the case in some of the newer buildings in or near downtown. Hopefully that’s just a few isolated incidents.
Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street
Just a quick one today. At yesterday’s Raleigh City Council meeting, approval was given for the NCDOT recommended P5 alternative, also known as “the square loop.” We’ve gone over this plan for that area before so I’ll recommend you jump to a November 2013 post.
I feel the P5 alternative slows traffic down and starts to transition the area towards one with better urban form. I’m a huge fan of a grid-like street network and this alternative creates that in the new connection at Johnson Street and the Harrington Street extension. If we can add in on-street parking along these areas, interest in new development could increase. It can’t get any lower as the area only consists of sprawl-like, one-story buildings with surface parking.
*New Capital Boulevard Designs Out, Status Quo versus New Connections
Up next is the environmental study which is planned to be complete by this Fall. Construction is planned to start in the Summer of 2015.
You can dive into the official project page at the NCDOT: Peace St./Wade Ave. Bridge Replacements on Capital Blvd. page.
Peace Street interchange with Capital Boulevard.
On April 22, NCDOT is hosting a public meeting to show off the final designs for the new Capital Boulevard bridge at Peace Street. According to their timeline, after the public comment deadline of May 23, the decision on which alternative to go forward with will be made.
We’ve discussed the details up to this point but if you need a refresher, jump to this November 2013 post:
*New Capital Boulevard Designs Out, Status Quo versus New Connections
In combination with plans for a new Wade Avenue interchange bridge, not being discussed on this blog, the public hearing on April 22 should show off the most up-to-date plans for the two Peace Street alternatives, those being:
The base alternative is a one-to-one replacement of what we have today. A new bridge will be built and the same on/off ramps will exist, just like today. It’s possible that this alternative may get a two-lane on-ramp with northbound Capital Boulevard from Peace Street, the right lane being a right-turn lane for the Cotton Mill parking lot, but that is essentially the biggest change here.
The favored alternative, by the city, the state, and informally from readers of this blog, to the best of my knowledge, is the P5 alternative, also known as “The Square Loop.” This plan brings back the grid and creates an area that’s more attractive to development, more pedestrian friendly, and transitions Peace Street to better urban form.
Alternative P5, or Square Loop, for the new Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street. Click for larger.
The problem here is that The Square Loop plan is costlier due to the need for more property acquisition and street reconfiguration. The $11 million dollar difference between the two plans does not make the favored plan guaranteed. This is where the city has to step up and make this happen as it will most likely be more expensive to implement in the future if not done alongside this bridge replacement project.
More to come after the public meeting.
Date/Time: Tues. April 22, 2014 4-7pm (open house format, drop in any time)
Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Memorial Lobby
2 East South Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
919-707-6010
Cyclists ride under the Capital Boulevard bridge at Peace Street
Last night, NCDOT were showing off proposed design alternatives of the upcoming bridge replacements for Capital Boulevard at Peace Street and Wade Avenue. This is an upcoming project that comes out of the need to replace these approximately 50-year-old bridges before they become functionally unsafe. There are plans for two different alternatives for each bridge and I wanted to go over the bridge designs at the Capital and Peace intersection.
The two alternatives are being referred to as Alternative P-Base and Alternative P5. In my opinion, you have the status quo in the P-Base alternative and a new design in P5. However, as is to be expected the P-Base plan is the cheaper of the two. Let’s get in to each before comparing the two against each other.
Alternative P-Base
Alternative P-Base for the new Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street. Click for larger.
Like I stated earlier, the P-Base plan seems to have the least impact to the area and delivers a new bridge with the same street design around it. Entering and exiting Capital Boulevard from Peace Street is almost the same as today.
There are a few enhancements here that will help vehicles turn. The northbound entrance ramp to Capital from Peace would be two lanes wide, the right-most lane being a turn lane for the Cotton Mill parking lot. Also, when exiting downtown on Capital heading north, a right-most fourth lane will pop-out and feed the exit onto Peace Street. The same principals are there for exits and entrances on southbound Capital, where a fourth lane exists for merging compared to the abrupt turn lane that’s there now.
It also looks like the entrance to the small row of shops (Jersey Mike’s, Dry Clean City, etc.) will not have that little driveway onto the northbound Capital ramp.
Alternative P5
Alternative P5 for the new Capital Boulevard bridge over Peace Street. Click for larger.
P5 has a lot more going on around the same new bridge that will be built. Capital Boulevard entrances and exits have been moved and will result in a new traffic pattern. Before we go over these, it’s important to show the new street connections that are proposed.
Harrington Street would play a much bigger role in the P5 plan. Here, Harrington would kind of “punch” through and connect to Peace Street, accomplished through the use of property acquisition. This would create a brand new, signalized intersection.
Nearby along southbound Capital, the parallel service street, intersecting Johnson Street to the north, would be redone as well. Rather than an awkward turn off Capital, you could now make a right turn, with a dedicated turn lane, onto a connecting Johnson Street. This then drops you off at Johnson and Harrington and off into Glenwood South.
Along northbound Capital, new to any proposed design yet, is a longer off-ramp with driveways to Johnson Street to the south of Peace and a turn lane to the Cotton Mill on the north. This off-ramp will create another signalized intersection at Peace Street.
So with these additions, there are some things that are removed. Gone are the “cloverleaf” style on/off ramps at Capital on to Peace. With the addition of the Johnson Street connection and Harrington Street extension, traffic should flow through here in its place.
Matching Them Up
The two plans don’t share much but walkers and cyclists get a win with both. Peace Street will get 5-foot bike lanes and what looks like wider sidewalks, which are desperately needed as nature is reclaiming the current pedestrian paths on the south side.
A minor detail that I thought was important is that both plans call for 11-foot lanes on Capital Boulevard. This actually contradicts the Capital Boulevard Corridor Study’s “Happy Motoring” section stating that 12-foot lanes were something to work towards. I believe that increasing those lane widths would have created faster speeds, more vehicles, and more traffic along Peace Street. I commented in support of the 11-foot lanes for either plan as it compliments an urban area better.
Cost of the two plans is drastically different. According to last night’s handout:
That’s an $11 million dollar difference. The bulk of the reason comes from the property acquisition involved in each alternative, 5 versus 12 properties in the area.
Overall, I left comments in support of the P5 alternative. Simply put, this area is pretty much a place to get through and not stop in. We already know that delivering the same thing will most likely produce little new results so we almost owe it ourselves to find that $11 million and try something new.
I feel the P5 alternative slows traffic down and starts to transition the area towards one with better urban form. I’m a huge fan of a grid-like street network and this alternative creates that in the new connection at Johnson Street and the Harrington Street extension. If we can add in on-street parking along these areas, interest in new development could increase. It can’t get any lower as the area only consists of sprawl-like, one-story buildings with surface parking.
NCDOT is taking input on the alternatives over the next few weeks. Here’s the project page on the NCDOT website with contact information so you can submit your thoughts.
The handout also gave us a project timeline.
[UPDATE: 11-21-13]
I’ve added the cross section of Peace Street which shows the 5-foot bike lanes on each side of the street. The cross section is pretty much the same between the two alternatives. Click for a larger view.
