Latest news with #MitchellSilver
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Raleigh City Council reluctantly endorses making part of US 1 a toll road
The Raleigh City Council has endorsed charging tolls on Capital Boulevard between Interstate 540 and Wake Forest, but, as some council members made clear, not enthusiastically. The tolls will allow the N.C. Department of Transportation to accelerate plans to turn the congested four-lane road into a six-lane expressway, with interchanges instead of traffic lights. Without tolls, NCDOT doesn't anticipate having money to begin building the expressway until 2031, a decade later than originally planned. Rising costs and competition from other projects across the state forced the delay, NCDOT officials say; the latest estimate is that converting 10 miles of Capital/U.S. 1 to an expressway would cost $1.34 billion. 'With what's going on in Western North Carolina, that really is just a projection,' said city transportation planning manager Kenneth Ritchie, referring to the rebuilding after Hurricane Helene. 'Certainly costs will continue to increase and impact this project the longer that it draws out.' Under the option backed by the City Council on Tuesday, construction could begin in 2027 and be completed by early 2033. 'There are implications to saying no,' council member Mitchell Silver said. 'Doing nothing will be unsustainable long term.' The tolls would be collected by the N.C. Turnpike Authority, a branch of NCDOT. At the request of regional transportation planners, the authority studied tolling and presented four scenarios, all four of which would result in the six-lane limited-access highway: ▪ Scenario 1: Tolling the entire 10-mile stretch from I-540 north through Wake Forest as a standalone toll road. Would raise an estimated $800 million. ▪ Scenario 2: Tolling the entire 10 miles but adding it to the N.C. Turnpike system, which would allow the state to borrow more money. Would generate an estimated $1.4 billion. ▪ Scenario 3: Build and toll one express lane in each direction, again as a standalone toll road. The existing four-lane road would remain free. Would raise an estimated $100 million. ▪ Scenario 4: Build and toll one express lane in each direction and add them to the N.C. Turnpike system. With the additional borrowing power, the lanes would generate an estimated $600 million. The Turnpike Authority didn't provide specific toll costs, but said the rates for a fully tolled expressway would be similar to what drivers pay to use the Triangle Expressway in southern Wake County. This year, drivers with an NC Quick Pass pay about 23 cents a mile, though the rates rise a bit each year. The toll rates for the express lanes would vary during the day, depending on traffic. Council vote wasn't close The City Council voted 7-1 to back Scenario 2, in part because it would generate the most money. Opposing tolls was Megan Patton, whose district straddles Capital Boulevard north of I-540 and who said her constituents are generally opposed to the expressway itself. 'When I've taken this out to the community, every resident I've spoken to understands that no toll means no build,' Patton said. 'And for them that seems to resonate as being the better option than any of the tolled scenarios.' Patton understood, though, that the council would back tolls and the expressway. She urged that the tolls be cheaper at night or off-peak hours and that the road be designed to accommodate bus rapid transit in the future. At-large council member Jonathan Lambert-Melton indicated that he'd also heard from residents who questioned tolling the road. Lambert-Melton said he believed the project would move ahead with tolls anyway and that it was more a matter of which scenario the council wanted to endorse. 'People keep saying, 'Why do you want to put tolls on Capital Boulevard?' This is the N.C. Department of Transportation,' he said. 'This is not any of us saying, 'Let's go ahead and add toll lanes to a city road' or anything like that.' The council's endorsement will be passed on to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which does transportation planning. The CAMPO board, which includes representatives from cities, towns and counties in and around Wake County, will make the final decision on whether to ask the Turnpike Authority to toll Capital Boulevard.
Axios
30-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
Raleigh's massive Gipson Play Plaza will open in June
Across the Triangle, cities are pouring tens of millions of dollars into building new public gathering spaces for residents hungry to take advantage of new amenities in their fast-growing communities. Why it matters: Since it opened in late 2023, Downtown Cary Park has been a catalyst for downtown Cary's resurgence from an afterthought destination to one that attracts individuals and families from across the region. The $68 million park — featuring large play areas, common spaces and even a bar — has attracted new development and new businesses around the edges of the park. Driving the news: In June, Raleigh hopes to capture a similar energy when it opens Gipson Play Plaza in Dix Park. Gipson Play Plaza is a $69 million interactive area that leaders hope will serve as the new entrance to Dix Park and attract tens of thousands of visitors. A large portion of the plaza's funding comes from a $275 million parks bond Raleigh voters approved in 2022. It's one of the first phases of Raleigh's long-term plans to turn Dix Park into one of the leading urban parks in the country. Between the lines: Mitchell Silver, a Raleigh City Council member and former New York City parks commissioner, told Axios that cities risk falling behind if they're not investing in gathering spaces. "If we want to build a great city you have to have amazing public spaces," he said while on a trip with the council to Kansas City, where he learned about that city's park efforts. "We don't have many of those [great gathering spaces] in Southern cities," he added. "It's important to make [Dix Park] that social gathering place." Zoom in: The 18.5-acre Play Plaza will feature several playgrounds and gathering spaces, including a waterfall wall, picnic grove, food vendors and skywalks. State of play: The success of Downtown Cary Park comes up frequently at gatherings across the Triangle, with residents wishing something similar existed near them or as a source of comparison to existing parks. That was true in Durham last week, when its city council gathered to discuss making improvements to Durham Central Park and studied a presentation that featured images from parks across the country, including Downtown Cary's. A great city is "deserving of a great space like this," Durham City Council Member Nate Baker said at the meeting. He noted that he and his colleagues "look around to our neighbors in Cary and Raleigh and Dix Park and all of the work that is going into great parks." What's next: The Durham City Council will discuss making more improvements to Durham Central Park later this spring, and it's also studying the future of the historic Durham Athletic Park as another potential gathering space. Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams told Axios that improving those downtown spaces is a "high priority," but the price of those changes will need to be studied carefully, with many residents feeling the sting of large property value increases. Silver, for his part, hopes Raleigh uses the momentum of Gipson to invest more in its downtown spaces — specifically making Nash Square more active and bridging the roughly 1.5-mile gap between Dix Park and downtown.
