Now What?

Now that City Council has advanced both the NC3 proposal (through the Task Force recommendation)  and asked NCDOT to explore alternatives, we must turn our focus to the DOT and ask them to do the right thing:

1) Take NC3 off  the table! 

As Norfolk Southern’s recent letter clearly explained, there are too many inconsistencies in the EIS, the Task Force process and missing data — much less the eminent domain issues — for this to be a viable option.  

2)  Find a better route

Last week, Thomas Crowder called for a collaborative effort between NCDOT, and other city,state and federal agencies to incorporate the High Speed Rail plan with the redesign of the Capital Blvd corridor.

Therefore, I request the Council propose this partnership fund, carefully study and seriously consider extending the downtown road grid network north along the Capital Boulevard Valley to the intersection of US #1 and Wake Forest Road, aligning the SEHSR Corridor from this intersection south to West Street via an elevated viaduct shared with Triangle Transit lines over a rehabilitated and potentially realigned Pigeon House Branch watercourse integrated into a heavily landscaped urban greenway and a stormwater control system below it, creating the multi-modal transportation infrastructure needed for an urban scale mixed-use, mixed-income expansion of downtown.

While the timelines of the two programs differ, there is a huge opportunity to marry the two into a smart, integrated solution for the future of Raleigh.

Consider this:

If NCDOT does not vet an alternative that works locally and with the federal railroad standards, then NC3 is what’s been proposed by the City.   Granted, a better NC3 thanks to Russ Stephenson and Thomas Crowder’s focus on using the best technologies for mitigation and using brick and other design features to better blend in.  But still NC3 – impacting FIFTY FOUR of our local businesses and, according to Norfolk Southern, AT LEAST 18 HOMES.

What we can all do:

Contact your state and federal level  Representatives. Let them know this is important to you and you want it to be important to them.

We’ll post contact information shortly.