Hillsborough Street Newsletter – February 2010

Runners will assemble on the 2100 block of Hillsborough Street.  Pullen Street will be closed from the roundabout one block off Hillsborough to Hillsborough from ~7:30 to 11 a.m. on Feb. 6.  Hillsborough Street will be closed from Enterprise to Woodburn and Boylan to Woodburn from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.  St Mary’s Street closed from Peace to Hillsborough St from 8:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.   The race should be over and all traffic will be reopened by 11 a.m. on Saturday.

“If you’ve driven down Hillsborough Street at night within the past week or so, you may have noticed some new lighting. What makes this lighting noteworthy is that it is LED (right side shot above), as opposed to fluorescent or the more common sodium vapor lamps (left side).

“But before we dive into why this is important, let’s take a look at the history of municipal lighting of streets, buildings, and sidewalks at night…”

http://goodnightraleigh.com/2010/01/the-evolution-of-street-lighting-in-raleigh/

“By the time work began last year on the first phase of the project, however, a growing band of cyclists was lobbying to overturn that consensus and get bike lanes added to the plan. Last week, the cycling community won a major victory when a City Council committee voted 3-0 to back its position. The three, Councilors Russ Stephenson, John Odom and Bonner Gaylord, are a cross section of the council’s Democratic, Republican and independent members, respectively. Their recommendation was expected to be endorsed by the full council Tuesday.

“The council’s decision won’t be final. Because Hillsborough Street is a state road (N.C. 54), the N.C. Department of Transportation could veto it on grounds that the original plan is safer—which was DOT’s position in the past, according to city staffers…”

From Bob Geary at IndyBlogs:
Hillsborough Street bike lanes are looking good. (!)

“The City Council’s public works committee held its long-awaited meeting on the issue last night. The verdict, by unanimous decision: There should be bike lanes on all of Hillsborough Street from downtown to the Fairgrounds. No exception for the Hillsborough Street Project (Phase 1, remember) in front of N.C. State…

“The only hitch in this giddyup may come from the state Department of Transportation… DOT’s not a fan, city staffers report, of segmenting the two travel lanes … into a 10′ vehicle section, a 4′ bike-lane section and 2′ to protect the bikes from “dooring” …

“If DOT goes along, the bike lanes will be striped as soon as the construction work is done — sometime this summer, in other words.”

From the Raleigh Public Record blog:
Hillsborough Street bike lanes move forward

“District B councilor John Odom said during the meeting that if the city can keep the project on schedule and on budget and still put in the bike lanes, than there was no reason not to do it.

“Bonner Gaylord, who represents District E, joked about the long process ahead to approve the bike lanes: ‘We’re doing it as fast as bureaucratically possible…Essentially we’re charting a course.’”

From NewRaleigh.com blog:
Hillsborough Street Bike Lanes on Public Works Agenda Tuesday

“…[a local group of bikers] put together a short presentation of their proposal for Hillsborough Street. It is illustrated below in the image gallery but on Fayetteville Street in Downtown Raleigh because it was not possible to do so on Hillsborough Street currently b/c of the construction.”

For the full article, go to http://www.newsobserver.com/news/counties/wake_county/story/253379.html

Photo credit: Ted Richardson, News & Observer

Boarding streetcars on the 2300 block of Hillsborough Street, right across from the North Carolina State College campus, to travel into downtown Raleigh. 1917 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncsu_scrc/2899345736/

From NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center’s photostream at Flickr.com

Two Guys, Melvin’s Hamburgers, Five-O-Clock Sports Bar and the Bowling Alley are collaborating to throw the Ultimate N.C. State Tailgate Party.  Starting Wednesday Sept. 2, the night before the first home game against South Carolina, all four locations will be featuring live bands and lots of specials.

Hillsborough Street is going under some major aesthetic changes to improve its image and become a better haven for N.C. State students, and some local businesses are following the trend…

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