Traffic Chair Addresses Person Blount Street and Wake Forest Road Corridor

February 20, 2010 

From: Philip Bernard, MCAC Traffic Chair

Re: Meeting about Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Issues

I met with Reid Serozi, MCAC Co-Chair, after February’s CAC meeting so that I could bring him up to date on the current strategy re: traffic and pedestrian safety issues in our area of downtown.

We discussed how after years of voicing traffic concerns to City Council and Staff, we now have some support and structure in place within the Public Works and Planning Departments to address these concerns.

In a meeting of City Council in January, Russ Stephenson, City Council Member at Large, recommended that the Person Blount Street and Wake Forest Road corridor be added to Council’s list of top priority area plans to be studied in the next three years.

Mitchell Silver, director of planning, indicted that this addition would be acceptable.

Eric Lamb, Traffic Engineer with the Public Works Department has indicated that a proposed streetscape plan for Wake Forest Road is one of two dozen streetscape plans that will be competing for funding in the future.

Russ Stephenson has suggested that we identify the stakeholders along this corridor and cultivate their support in advocating for the study, planning, and funding of the projects associated with this corridor. Stakeholders would join together to collectively ask members of City Council to support and fund these projects.

List of Potential Stakeholders were identified as follows:

Mordecai CAC

Mordecai Neighborhood Association

Mordecai East Neighborhood Association

Oakdale Neighborhood Association

Society for the Preservation of Historic Oakwood

North Central CAC

Central CAC and the Southpark Neighborhood

Downtown Raleigh Alliance or some representative from downtown?

Blount Street Redevelopment

Peace College 

The Village of Pilot Mill Neighborhood Association

Business Owners in Person Street Business District

Seaboard Station

Our goal is to have a meeting of the MCAC Traffic Committee in March (to be announced) to discuss the strategy for uniting these stakeholders and lobbying City Council for support.

We will also discuss a committee structure which will allow us to address all issues of traffic and pedestrian safety within our collective neighborhoods. Time and location to be announced.

Potential Issues are:

Dangerous Intersections

Traffic Calming on Side Streets

Sidewalk Repair

Street Paving Schedule

Vegetation Obstruction

Any other issues deemed necessary

(Note: Future CAC meeting could have speakers addressing above issues)