Well...I think that a PBR at the Raleigh Times is a must-do after this week for out-of-towners

Here's an interesting Flickr image of RDU's new Terminal 2 (former American Airlines Terminal C complex)

You can see a small portion of it on the other side of the central parking decks.

Wait, how will City Plaza be a barrier to pedestrians? It can't be any more than it is now, because construction is blocking everything...
I also think it is important that F street goes all the way through to South Street. Are there any plans for the area where the parking lots are in front of Memorial?

It is a shame that "you clogged it, you fix it" doesn't apply to Johnston County. Instead, the rest of the state pays for their mistakes, and they plow ahead with making the same mistakes over again (more more more!) It is a good deal for them to not have to raise impact fees or real estate transfer fees when everyone else foots the bill for their 22 new bridges and 10 miles of four land highway. US 70 was already built to freeway standards from west of Smithfield/Selma to east of 95. There isn't much industry that way, so the roads built with tax dollars are not to attract jobs but to make Johnston County homes and strip malls more atrractive.

Signs for the new bypass are already up and covered on 40. The "business" designation over the current US 70 to Clayton from I-40, with a temporary blank green piece covering it. The sad thing is this project drew money from the DOT area that also incudes Wake County. I-40 from the Wade Ave split to 1/64 had to stay at two lanes each way while Fred Smith, umm I mean Clayton, got a bypass for the uncontrolled growth (Super Wal Mart, other shopping centers) on their old bypass. All the while sucking life out of the original downtown (slowly improving due to arts while the swelling population barely notices) built on the train tracks that are still maintained.

I-40 will still be two lanes each way down there (for now), so the congestion will be somewhat relieved and shifted.

I don't think the general assembly should pull a county's right to vote on a tranfer fee, regardless of it failing in 20 counties so far. Most of those referendums had no direction for the revenue, so of course they failed. If they showed those dollars would go to school construction or road improvments or anything specific and needed, it would have done better. Does anyone know why it failed in Orange County, other than the Home Builder's Association's "stop the home tax" campaign?

The sales tax option is also failing for the most part. It passed in one county and failed in several others, again because there was little to no description of where the generated revenue would go.

Not meaning to bash...you just need to understand that the typical northern rust belt pattern of blighted, high crime innner city/rich white suburbs doesn't hold to the same extent here. Despite the best efforts of the affluent parents of Cary and Apex, we have a unitary school system where the wealthy parts of the metropolis have not been allowed to set up their own enclaves.

And the comment about rich white kids crashing daddy's sports car isn't a cliche, its, sadly, a fact:

4 crash victims were Wakefield seniors (March, 2006 N&O)

Another Wakefield High Student Killed In Car Crash

Wakefield High Students Charged After Classmate Killed in Crash (March, 2007)

(these are three separate incidents).

Poor kids ride the bus...

This is of course off topic, but both Meeker and Perdue went for Obama, not Hillary!

Sorry no pics but it was the old Warren Distributing building, which was a lowrise, brick, sprawling brick building set back a good distance from the street.

Well, this project and Meeker's plea may come to the forefront of the gubernatorial race. In all of Perdue's Edwardsian violin playing about how hard it is for everyone (nevermind that we could not book a $400+ a night room at Disney for our vacation because of excess demand. Want a nice restaurant, book it 180+days out because they are slam full), we've seen no evidence that Perdue wants to centralize the state government and bring thousands of workers back to our urban core. Meanwhile McCrory's track record on urban renewal speaks for itself. If the state government goes like Charlotte has under McCrory, expect big time urban renewal projects across the state.

I'd like to see our State government get on the page of all the good work that has happened around here recently. They need to listen to Meeker.

The Wake County Board of Commissioners are working on a plan that puts themselves in charge of building and maintaing the county's schools while leaving the operations of the school system itself to the school board. On the surface, this looks like a good idea, but it could get ugly in a hurry:
- Commissioners put schools only where campaign fundraising developers tell them to.
- Commissioners decide to stop mataining some schools (Southeast Raleigh, ITB) and spending that money on schools elsewhere (Cary/Apex/Wake Forest).
- Schools built as cheaply as possible to "save taxpayer dollars" initially, but end up costing more over time due to maintenance costs.
- A repeat their recent mistake - ignore growth trends and deny that new schools are needed while schools become overcrowded, resulting in year round calendars
- Cutting school operation funds (bye bye arts!) to pay for higher construction costs.

It sounds like the board is promising more money for operations as a compromise, but since they control the purse strings, that money could easily be short lived.

It is another power grab by a handful of commissioners and I hope the school board shuts this down, and any move that would make more than one or two school board positions at-large.

N&O's coverage. The issue is referred to the BED committee for discussion. The article says reynolds hopes to have financing ready to enable a winter construction start date.

Is Globe part of Rocky Top?

Agreed. In my experience on the new buses, some of them have basically no padding and are terrible to sit on for more than 15 or 20 minutes, while others have about 1" of extra padding that actually makes a huge difference and makes the seats usable. However, the higher backs and headrests from the old buses are sorely missed. It looks to me like the metal rails can be unbolted from the seats, so perhaps a head rest could be bolted on in their place?

I have sent a complaint to TTA to this effect, and I suggest that you do the same.

I don't know if you've caught the resurrected 'home tax' ads lately, but I have. Orange County is considering the transfer tax on May 6. It should be interesting to see what happens. Orange is unquestionably the most liberal county in NC, so there is a tendency to say after getting voted down 16-0 last fall if it can't pass there, it probably can't pass anywhere, and might be repealed by the legislature.

I've been riding the bus a couple times a week now for about a month and it is funny to me that I actually prefer the older buses versus the new ones. Yes, the new ones look better on the outside, but who cares, they are not as comfortable as the old ones. The old ones had nicer seats and something you could actually call a headrest. The newer ones are filled with metal rails and a "sheet" of cushion on plastic chairs. This is key in a long ride from DTR to RTP. It might be a small point to some but the details are important for those that use the TT buses for long trips across the triangle. By long I do not mean distance, I mostly mean time; bus is just too slow.

Where is that train???