Follow-up letter to City of Raleigh Planning Staff - Capital Blvd

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Philip Bernard

Date: Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:22 AM

Subject: Meeting Notes - - Capital Boulevard Corridor Study

To: Kenneth Bowers, Silver Mitchell, Trisha Hasch, Elizabeth Alley

Ken, Mitchell, and Planning Staff,

Thank you for conducting an effective and valuable planning workshop for the Capital Boulevard corridor.

Quite a few of us from the Mordecai CAC attended this workshop and are excited about how this process might unfold. We currently know of two corridor studies proposed within our CAC boundaries, the Capital Boulevard Study between Peace and Atlantic streets and the Wake Forest Road/ Blount and Person Street study also between Atlantic and Peace Streets. We would like to see them both work together to improve traffic, pedestrian, and bike flow in our area of downtown and don’t see them as mutually exclusive of each other. Please see our meeting notes posted on our CAC website at:

www.mordecaicac.org/traffic/i/capitalboulevardcorridorstudy-meetingnotesfromworkshop

As added feedback, our roundtable discussion also raised the following issues:

1. Any changes on Capital Blvd would hopefully not increase traffic on Wake Forest Road or create a “log jam” at the Peace Street exit. We've been advocating for some time now that more of the traffic heading into downtown from Atlantic be encouraged to use Capital and that the Peace street exit and access to downtown via Peace and Blount be improved.

2. While a good portion of the Capital Blvd. corridor lies within our CAC boundary, (see map), www.mordecaicac.org/maps, we prefer more lanes on Capital if needed and less on Wake Forest ( take west lane as a bike/pedestrian path). We see Capital as being more of the true expressway it is meant to be, and Wake Forest, Blount and Person return to being more of the neighborhood livable streets they are meant to be.

3. We would like both corridor studies to encourage the development of retail/open door business in the Person Street business district/ Blount Street Commons and in the bonded warehouse area along Capital.  We are anxiously waiting to see the ideas in our Person Street business district charrette planned into reality.

4. We definitely would like to see a pedestrian/bike walkway cross the Capital "canyon" perhaps at the ends of Blount and Carson Streets and join Mordecai with Five Points. We love the idea of this bridge also joining a Pigeon House Creek greenway, a bonded warehouse retail commercial district, and bike paths extending into both neighborhoods and joining Wake Forest Road in our neighborhood.

5. We also noted that Raleigh Blvd to the east is currently underused.  There is no direct connection to Raleigh Blvd from Capital Blvd north of 440 and poor access from 440 itself. This road is not in our CAC but could relieve some of the traffic load on Wake Forest and Capital if properly connected to Capital and 440.

6. Final point, we see an additional smaller corridor study of Peace Street continuing from Glenwood to Person. We are in full support of every one of these projects and would like them to work together to achieve the goals mentioned above.

If you have any questions, please let me know. It might be good to set up a brief meeting at your convenience to discuss these points in more detail.

Philip Bernard

Traffic Chair MCAC