I'm hoping some folks are planning on attending tonight's second meeting of the NC 54/I40 corridor study group at the Friday Center between 5 and 8PM (2-25-10).
Basically, it looks like they are going to ask folks to choose between three possible scenarios, one in which they assume less growth along the corridor and no light rail or rapid bus transit, one in which they assume more growth along the corridor and no light rail or rapid bus transit, and one in which they assume a lot of growth along the corridor, with light rail and rapid bus transit occurring and the current park and ride lots moved adjacent to I-40.
Anyone who wants to advocate for the third option should probably show up since it also is the only option that does not expand NC54 from its current lane structure to 3 lanes. I don't understand how expanding NC54 is going to three lanes is going to help with traffic congestion since the current main bottlenecks are at the stoplights at I-40 and the underpass where folks turn onto the ramp to get onto 54 bypass. Expanding to three lanes along the corridor would seemingly just encourage more traffic in the middle without addressing the root cause of the current back-ups. Am I missing something here? It seems like taking the park and ride lot out to I-40 would do much more to reduce traffic along NC54 than any of the road widening solutions.
Thoughts from others? Hope to see y'all there tonight!
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Thank you for posting this, Rickie
If I come tonight, it will be with infant in tow so I won't be able to stay long. I hope that Rickie and others who can fully engage with this process will pass on my strong support for the third option, a.k.a. "Scenario 2 - 'Med-Tech City'"* in this excellent overview: http://www.nc54-i40corridorstudy.com/workshop2.html* I noticed that this scenario includes redevelopment of Glen Lennox. This is something that I might support, but only under very specific conditions about how that is done.