October 8th NC Forum Meet CANCELLED due to lack of interest

[orulz]

Hey Everyone. I think it's about time we had a forum meet-up in NC. The opening of the new train station in downtown Greensboro on Saturday October 8th presents the perfect opportunity. So, I propose that we all ride the train to Greensboro in the morning (arriving between 9 and 9:30), enjoy the facility in its first week of operation, explore the city for a day, and then take the train back home when the day is over.

If you live somewhere that you can't take the train, but you still want to enjoy the station in all its intermodal glory, I suggest you take the bus - Greyhound, or GTA if you live in town. In my opinion, travelling without a car is so much more rewarding than using your car - but it's up to you.

Any ideas for things to do while we're in town? Too bad the Grasshoppers' season will be over by then.

[A2]

Hey Everyone. I think it's about time we had a forum meet-up in NC. The opening of the new train station in downtown Greensboro on Saturday October 1st presents the perfect opportunity. So, I propose that we all ride the train to Greensboro in the morning (arriving between 9 and 9:30), enjoy the facility on its first day, explore the city for a day, and then take the train back home when the day is over.

If you live somewhere that you can't take the train, but you still want to enjoy the station in all its intermodal glory, I suggest you take the bus - Greyhound, or GTA if you live in town. In my opinion, travelling without a car is so much more rewarding than using your car - but it's up to you.

Any ideas for things to do while we're in town? Too bad the Grasshoppers' season will be over by then.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would love to, but I am going to be in Atlanta more than likely at the end of September. If I am back soon enough I might just make it. B)

A2

[StevenRocks]

I'd love to meet you guys in Greensboro, but I'm going to be in Washington that weekend.

Have a good time!

[orulz]

Anybody else interested?

I've had a few people tell me that October 1st is no good; how is October 8th?

By the way, if you buy your ticket online, use discount code V616 - it's a 20% discount on the Carolinian and Piedmont.

For those of you coming from Charlotte, you can experience the Greensboro nightlife if you want. Ride the Piedmont in, from 5:30 to 7:07pm, and catch the Crescent home from 12:30am to 2:30am. The Crescent is usually on time or close enough, and the two hour ride should be plenty of time for that buzz to wear off

Drop me an e-mail or post here if you're interested.

[ezcheese]

i'll be flying back into NC (Charlotte) for the weekend of the 21st. but i don't know if i would even be able to make it out if the meet coincided with my travel plans.

you should definitely find a time when the most people say they can make it, because usually several people who actually say they will be there will not show up.

[JunktionFET]

I could probably do the 8th. I would be departing from the Cary station.

[Jerseyman4]

I would but school would impede me from making it down south anytime soon. Perhaps next time!

[orulz]

Okay, it seems like October 8th works best for everyone. Let's go with that!

We'll have all day - from roughly 9:30 am to 6:30pm. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner in G-boro. As far as things to do - I don't know! Suggestions? But there's plenty of places to explore. Come ready to do a lot of walking - and bring a camera. The GTA city buses run on Saturday too. Not sure about PART, though. Hey, even if nobody else comes I'll still be there enjoying myself for the day.

Hope to see you there.

[Jerseyman4]

Okay, it seems like October 8th works best for everyone. Let's go with that!

We'll have all day - from roughly 9:30 am to 6:30pm. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner in G-boro. As far as things to do - I don't know! Suggestions? But there's plenty of places to explore. Come ready to do a lot of walking - and bring a camera. The GTA city buses run on Saturday too. Not sure about PART, though. Hey, even if nobody else comes I'll still be there enjoying myself for the day.

Hope to see you there.

Ive attended "highway transportation meets" before, this is normally what goes on. First, it would start off at meeting at a restaurant thats easy to find, popular by locals, food is good and the price is right. Sometimes, people would bring souveniers, show in tell stuff like maps/photos/etc, share stories and of course, talk about current events on whats going in transportation of where the meet is at and/or regionally where you are. After we eat, we take a group photo of everyone that attended the meeting. Following that, we hit the road checking out road related stuff. For example, if the meet was held in Raleigh, the popular attractions would be the progress on I-540, construction on US 1 in Cary, new US 64 bypass east of Raleigh, pedestrian bridge on the beltline by Wade Ave, future improvements on Hillsborough Street that are seeking pedestrian-friendly roundabouts, future widening of US 401, capitol blvd at its 8 lane boulevard segments... you all get the idea now. After several hours of carpooling of checking out sights which normally, one or few persons would give a speech/lecture on what these places are all about since not everyone are familar of where the meet is held at. The meet would normally be about 4-6 hours long more or less. In conclusion of the meet, we all head back to the restaurant where we met in the first place, go back to our cars and give our good byes.

I hope this helps/gives ideas on how to coordinate a "raleigh urbanplanet" meet.

Btw, there was a Raleigh June 2004 Meet that I attended which i believe had the largest attendance ever!

[ezcheese]

the green bean would be a really cool place for you guys to meet up. it's a great little cafe right on Elm street downtown. or if you wanted to meet up somewhere and eat, natty green's is a couple of doors down on Elm. they have some decent food and they brew their own beer there. they have a pretty decent stout beer. if you get desert, make sure to get whatever slices of cheesecake they have from cheesecakes by alex. (my fav. is simply chocolate.) you can also check out cheesecakes by alex, which is also on Elm street. you could start there and walk around downtown and work your way out to other areas like fisher park, etc.

[orulz]

I was hoping to take the train there, which will make the whole experience closer to 9 hours instead of six. At the moment, the plan is to meet at the train station when the morning Carolinian gets there from Charlotte at 9:30. If someone wants to drive in (or ride the bus!) and join up with us then or later, that's great too- send me a PM and I'll leave you my cell phone number. It'd be best if someone familiar with G-boro could show us around, but if that can't happen maybe someone could help us make a list of places / neighborhoods, etc. to check out?

I'm all for doing a lot of walking but I recognize that some people might feel up to it. About five or six miles should be enough to cover most of downtown Greensboro and even UNCG. Of course the walking would be spread out over the enitre day so it would not be overwhelming - but if there are some people who want to come along but can't walk that much, we could come up with some other way to do this.

Since the train arrives in the morning, a place that serves breakfast would be nice. I did a quick search and came up with the Smith Street Diner at Smith and Battleground (on the north end of DT, perhaps a 10 or 15 minute walk from the station) but if someone knows somewhere else that is closer or better, or if you'd rather hit the Green Bean just for some coffee then that would be great too.

The way I see it, there are several options for lunch and dinner.

1. We could just do lunch, and have everyone get dinner when they get home.

2. We could do both lunch and dinner.

3. We could eat a big breakfast and skip straght to an early dinner around 4:00 and kill time talking about statewide development over a beer (or three) until the train home at 6:30. Sure that's a bit early to be drinking too much, but there are no worries about driving on the train either.

[ezcheese]

if you do breakfast, smith street diner is awesome. it gets really crowded on the weekends though, so brace yourself!

[JunktionFET]

I'm still planning to go... Who else is going?

[orulz]

I am. Maybe we should put a post in the Charlotte forum because a lot of the people there seldom go anywhere else

[Justin6882]

^ hahaha good one I wish I could come, but I have to work from 8-12pm so by the time I got there it would be almost time to turn around.

[SouthJersey7]

Hello, I am a UNCG student and just found out about this, I would be interested in tagging along, if that's alright. I will have to leave at some point during the day, but I would enjoy getting a walking tour of Greensboro (of which i have not seen very much yet) and would like to hear about ongoing and upcoming local projects. So, it's about 9:30ish at the new train station then?

[Noneck_08]

Hope you all have a good time Saterday. I wish I could go, but I have to go to my aunts wedding in Columbia, SC. By the way I did go downtown to check out the depot last weekend. I was impressed with it and downtown in general. There was alot of people on Elm Street for a Saterday afternoon. O and by the way there are a few photos from my trip in the Triad Fourms.

[orulz]

Okay... last call. The response for this forum meet has been underwhelming to say the least, due in part to my lack of promotion, so maybe we'll just have to push it back to a later date when we can get a bit bigger crowd together.

If you all are still up for holding the meeting with a small group and are planning / able to go, let me know. But if I don't hear back by 3:00pm tomorrow, I'm calling the official meeting off.

In that case, I'll still go to Greensboro, and I'll be at the station at 9:30 in case some people miss this message and show up. If somebody shows, we can work something out then. Otherwise, I will attend a meeting of another group in Greensboro... but that won't take the whole day, so if any locals want to get together and chat urban development, just drop me an e-mail and we can exchange phone numbers.

I'll have the final word about the official meeting by tomorrow at 3:00pm, so check this space.

[orulz]

OK, seeing as I have heard from absolutely nobody, the forum meet in Greensboro is hereby cancelled.

I'll be there regardless (once again, other business in Greensboro) in case somebody shows up, and we can work things out from there. It'll be raining all day so it might not be much fun anyway.

[DigitalSky]

Sorry you had to cancel it... it's fall break though

[ezcheese]

maybe by the time you get enough people together, i will have moved back down to greensboro or charlotte. (here's hoping, anyway.)

[ChiefJoJo]

I might be up for going to Charlotte--maybe by train--or maybe having regional meetups, in RDU, GSO, and CLT.

[ncwebguy]

I would be up for regional meetups... with Urban Raleigh possibly leading the way for the triangle.

A Urban Durham could be neat, though I don't know what kind of support for such a group exists.

Maybe down the road we could do day trips from one metro to another, meeting some of that metro's members while there?

I have this user name at y-hoo if anyone wants to email me, but it mostly gets spammed so I don't check it much, about once a week.