Councilman to Business Insider: “Raleigh’s moving from ‘sleepy’ to major city.” Article says city’s character declining. (Greensboro: live, relocating)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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I lived in Atlanta for 14 years before moving here. Unfortunately, after spending the modern equivalent of gigadollars on MARTA rail, the system doesn't have much impact outside 285 -- and that's where the majority of metro residents live.
The reason MARTA doesn't go into Gwinnett and other surrounding counties is they did not approve the tax hike to fund MARTA. I don't know how patterns are since COVID, but a lot of the traffic on MARTA is commuters going into/out of town. I had a friend that for decades would drive to the MARTA station in Doraville and ride to the BellSouth/AT&T tower in downtown.
Most of my time in the Triangle has been spent in Chapel Hill-Durham side of the Triangle with commutes to Cary and Pittsboro. I can confidently say that the traffic on the west side of the Triangle has gotten significantly worse. 15-501 and Hwy 54 are often gridlocked at random times of the day and week due to sporting events and a mega church. Extreme speeding is common place. The length of drive from Chapel Hill to Pittsboro has gone up tremendously. So many traffic lights have gone up in the last decade so people speed to make up the lost time. Hwy 64 in Apex/West Cary is becoming dangerous and gridlocked also - it doesn't stop at Laura Duncan Rd anymore but carries all the way down to Hwy 751, which also can have traffic backed up a mile at the intersection.
I lived in Raleigh in 2010 and the traffic was still pretty terrible. It took forever to drive across North Raleigh back then, and North Hills was just the mall and the newly built hotel. I can't say whether it has gotten worse or not, but I suspect it has. Parking has also become impossible to find in downtown Raleigh. It used to be easy to find street parking on the weekends for free. Last time I went to DTR on a Saturday afternoon it took 30 minutes to find a spot within a quarter mile of the Boxcar. Its even becoming difficult to find parking in Cary, which is where I would go to avoid traffic.
Raleigh as knew is gone. Down the dumpster. Too many people and too much traffic. Access to healtcare etc gone out the window. It’s a dang shame but it is where we are.
I think that some of the natives still see Raleigh as sleepy, even though as you said it transitioned a long time ago. Ask most newcomers and they'll express a different opinion.
I've been here 5 years in May, and I definitely wouldn't call it "sleepy". I've seen too much of this country. It's definitely transitioning still but the "sleepy" part left awhile ago...
Quote:
Originally Posted by codygreen
Most of my time in the Triangle has been spent in Chapel Hill-Durham side of the Triangle with commutes to Cary and Pittsboro. I can confidently say that the traffic on the west side of the Triangle has gotten significantly worse. 15-501 and Hwy 54 are often gridlocked at random times of the day and week due to sporting events and a mega church. Extreme speeding is common place. The length of drive from Chapel Hill to Pittsboro has gone up tremendously. So many traffic lights have gone up in the last decade so people speed to make up the lost time. Hwy 64 in Apex/West Cary is becoming dangerous and gridlocked also - it doesn't stop at Laura Duncan Rd anymore but carries all the way down to Hwy 751, which also can have traffic backed up a mile at the intersection.
I lived in Raleigh in 2010 and the traffic was still pretty terrible. It took forever to drive across North Raleigh back then, and North Hills was just the mall and the newly built hotel. I can't say whether it has gotten worse or not, but I suspect it has. Parking has also become impossible to find in downtown Raleigh. It used to be easy to find street parking on the weekends for free. Last time I went to DTR on a Saturday afternoon it took 30 minutes to find a spot within a quarter mile of the Boxcar. Its even becoming difficult to find parking in Cary, which is where I would go to avoid traffic.
I live in North Hills, it's not a difficult traverse across North Raleigh. Traffic is relative, to me there are spurts of traffic issues but overall I wouldn't call it "bad" here...
There's nearly 500,000 people in the city, nearly 1.2 million in the county, nearly 2.2 million in the CSA. Anyone who expects ease of traffic with this population are fooling themselves. It could be easier, the city needs to ramp up its investment in transit infrastructure, but it really isn't horrible here. It's what you should expect for a city it's size...
I could make the argument that traffic is nearly identical on major roads to what it was like ten years ago, I think your perspective is likely very subjective and based on specific pockets within the Triangle.
Where I used to live, volume on the tertiary road I lived off of definitely increased due to builders sprawl along 98, but volume on 540 is no different than when I started driving to RTP in 2013. Has volume increased? Sure. Is it worse? I can't see where/how, and I'm driving somewhere just about every day.
But again, I'm originally from the NYC area and my perspective is still likely skewered a bit. What we have here is still relatively minor, and definitely only within very narrowly defined windows of time.
I've commuted from various parts of Wake County to Chapel Hill during my time here, meaning I've gotten really familiar with traffic patterns around all of 540, through RTP, and passing through South Durham. The biggest difference I've noticed is that the evening rush hour seems to start earlier than it used to, and the congestion extends further east around 540.
Fortunately I know how to take alternate routes - and many of those routes are newly opened since I first moved here. I think that helps more than a little but.
Around what year did the sleepy years end? A woman who was like a relative to me moved there in the early 90s. I haven't communicated with her in a long time.
Around what year did the sleepy years end? A woman who was like a relative to me moved there in the early 90s. I haven't communicated with her in a long time.
Sleepy is a very subjective term. In the early 90s Raleigh was a city of around 250,000ish and Wake County around 500kish. Today Raleigh is pushing 500k within city limits and Wake is pushing 1.2 million.
Early 1990s Raleigh/Wake County was right between where Winston-Salem/Forsyth County and Greensboro/Guilford County fall today population-wise. Are W-S/Greensboro considered "sleepy" today? To some people potentially. To others that's a bustling metropolis.
I grew up in 1990s/Aughts Raleigh/Wake and didn't feel like a "small town kid" at all; but that's just me.
Someone who grew up in Manhattan would probably view it differently.
Sleepy is a very subjective term. In the early 90s Raleigh was a city of around 250,000ish and Wake County around 500kish. Today Raleigh is pushing 500k within city limits and Wake is pushing 1.2 million.
Early 1990s Raleigh/Wake County was right between where Winston-Salem/Forsyth County and Greensboro/Guilford County fall today population-wise. Are W-S/Greensboro considered "sleepy" today? To some people potentially. To others that's a bustling metropolis.
I grew up in 1990s/Aughts Raleigh/Wake and didn't feel like a "small town kid" at all; but that's just me.
Someone who grew up in Manhattan would probably view it differently.
I moved from two dying small towns PA in 1997.
1st, Population 6,500. Now <4,000
2nd town then 23,000 and shrinking. Recently, it has grown a bit only as a bedroom community to surrounding towns.
"Sleepy?" to the max. They were positively moribund.
Since then, Cary has over doubled in population.
Raleigh has also grown tremendously.
Wife's family referred to us as "moved to the city." Cary, 1997.
"Not sleepy?" I empathize with natives who feel slammed. But I have seen what happens when towns stand still.
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Cary, 1997.
