Misc. Uptown Projects/News

[Desert Power]

On 6/25/2022 at 11:20 AM, Windsurfer said:

Say you put it on a diet, as they're doing to Statesville Ave, except for I-77, how do you get from north to south on a busy morning when there's an accident on 77?   Especially since CATS doesn't see fit to build turnout lanes for bus stops.  Nothing more irritating than sitting behind a bus on Statesville Ave at that choke point where there is a 'diet' just to have to wait for the driver to time his schedule right.

I haven't been on Statesville lately, but nobody should be trying to avoid traffic on 77 by cutting through Graham St through uptown IMO. It is really a narrow neighborhood road and busses are already just taking up 2 lanes on it.

[Windsurfer]

10 hours ago, Desert Power said:

I haven't been on Statesville lately, but nobody should be trying to avoid traffic on 77 by cutting through Graham St through uptown IMO. It is really a narrow neighborhood road and busses are already just taking up 2 lanes on it.

So, just sit in traffic and not pay attention to google alternatives when there's an accident ?  I77 is already a log jam now in the morning. Just a fender bender can lock it down for an hour. 

[JRCLT]

The consequences of poor investment in transit…

[go_vertical]

I could be wrong here, but I feel like I remember hearing something about restrictions on road expansion adjacent to 77 in the contract with the toll developers.  Basically, it's something about pulling drivers away from the tolls with better thoroughfares nearby thus minimizing the profit potential of their "investment".  The city essentially agreed to limiting road improvements within a certain distance of 77 for a set amount of time.  Have I lost it or did anyone else hear anything like this? 

[kermit]

51 minutes ago, go_vertical said:

I could be wrong here, but I feel like I remember hearing something about restrictions on road expansion adjacent to 77 in the contract with the toll developers.  Basically, it's something about pulling drivers away from the tolls with better thoroughfares nearby thus minimizing the profit potential of their "investment".  The city essentially agreed to limiting road improvements within a certain distance of 77 for a set amount of time.  Have I lost it or did anyone else hear anything like this? 

I have not heard a thing about the 77 South project but that is a pretty standard part of private toll road contracts. NCDOT agreed to that clause in North Meck.

[go_vertical]

Oh yeah. I was talking about the north side.  Sorry, forgot to mention that. 

[Desert Power]

On 6/26/2022 at 11:11 PM, Windsurfer said:

So, just sit in traffic and not pay attention to google alternatives when there's an accident ?  I77 is already a log jam now in the morning. Just a fender bender can lock it down for an hour. 

Just seems a really bad alternative when compared to 277 or even Beatties Ford. That stretch through uptown really needs to be calmed.

[kayman]

On 6/24/2022 at 7:52 PM, RANYC said:

Who are "they?"  NC DOT?  Are they in a Charlotte office given they make design decisions for their roads in Charlotte?  Are there names and bios on a website?  Do they have some discretion in their planning for what these roads should look like and how traffic should flow, or are they carrying out pre-determined and very specific instructions from Raleigh?

 

All direction of NCDOT comes from Raleigh not district offices. Also Metro Charlotte is split btwn the Division 9,  10, & 12 offices of NCDOT.  That's very inefficient as all 11 Greater Charlotte counties (Mecklenburg, Gaston, Iredell, Union, Cabarrus, Rowan, Anson, Stanly,  Cleveland, Catawba, and Alexander) should be all in the same NCDOT division or 2 divisions that are aligned with this region.

Another sign, you all should be complaining to your NC State House Representatives and State Senators:

https://www.ncleg.gov/findyourlegislators

If they're not responsive to your requests on demanding more changes to NCDOT then support and vote for their opponent this election cycle on November 8th or the 2024 election cycle. 

This is how we fix things demand change and stay on top of our state legislative representation to demand more division based decisionmaking from NCDOT and responsive decisions from the NCDOT leadership. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by kayman

[Spartan]

On 6/24/2022 at 7:52 PM, RANYC said:

Who are "they?"  NC DOT?  Are they in a Charlotte office given they make design decisions for their roads in Charlotte?  Are there names and bios on a website?  Do they have some discretion in their planning for what these roads should look like and how traffic should flow, or are they carrying out pre-determined and very specific instructions from Raleigh?

 

No, NCDOT is split into Divisions. I think 14 in total, but it might be 12 and I'm too lazy to look right now. Ours is Div 10, which as you likely guessed is based in Albemarle. Why? Because NCDOT.  There is, however, a Charlotte office off of  Orr Road, and they do coordinate with the City regularly. The City has a lot of opinions and influence with Division Staff, and are able to advance more progressive ideas than other divisions in the state for that reason - and in part because they have really great staff dedicated to this effort. But ultimately the City does not have the final say in the work NCDOT funds. The City can fund "enhancements" to State projects if they want (and that happens A LOT). That's part of why the City has taken over so many local streets over the years (ie: South Blvd), and why state roads function more like highways and less like city streets. NCDOT is only concerned about vehicular capacity and throughput. Pedestrians aren't technically ignored, but they are hardly a priority in any sense of the word.

NCDOT argues that an interchange like the one they built at Mt Holly-Huntersville Rd & Brookshire is the best thing since sliced bread. For non-transportation nerds, this intersection design is called a CFI, which sadly doesn't meant what you think. A Continuous-Flow Intersection processes a ton of traffic, and creates shorter crossing segments for pedestrians. From an engineering standpoint its great. It "unclogs" the intersection for cars and makes it safer for pedestrians. It also makes it about 600ft across, which is wider than a city block, so nobody in their right mind would every walk across there unless they have to. Which, to be fair, if no pedestrians ever cross the intersection then the likelihood of a crash decreases significantly. So, from the standpoint of UrbanPlaneteers, NCDOT is not helping the cause of improving urban form and function at all.

Anyway, point being, its not controlled from Raleigh. It's very much a lack of attention to detail or priority over how to do multi-modal transportation in an urban environment. All I can do is assure you that the City is aware of it, but you have to choose your battles. Hopefully next go around they will mill and resurface instead.

 

[JRCLT]

Looks like Brooklyn Village Avenue has been put into place.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfZkRk3J1Ks/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=



From Axios

[DMann]

Been there for several weeks now.

[go_vertical]

If they really wanted to pay homage to the original Brooklyn they wouldn't have put the "village" in there.  This isn't a critique on the actual project.  I'm really looking forward to what this development will bring to uptown, but I think Brooklyn Avenue would have done a lot more to show they care about the history and story of the neighborhood. 

[KJHburg]

41 minutes ago, go_vertical said:

If they really wanted to pay homage to the original Brooklyn they wouldn't have put the "village" in there.  This isn't a critique on the actual project.  I'm really looking forward to what this development will bring to uptown, but I think Brooklyn Avenue would have done a lot more to show they care about the history and story of the neighborhood. 

Unfortunately there was already a small newer street name Brooklyn Ave.  however I am not sure why they did not ask that street name to change to BV instead of this one aka Stonewall. 

Brooklyn Ave is off Siegle in a newer Pulte townhome community. 

[JRCLT]

Unfortunately there was already a small newer street name Brooklyn Ave.  however I am not sure why they did not ask that street name to change to BV instead of this one aka Stonewall. 
Brooklyn Ave is off Siegle in a newer Pulte townhome community. 

Why is that short stretch of street even an avenue?? Should be Rd. Or St. A real pain for what could have been Brooklyn Ave. in uptown.

[ertley]

19 hours ago, KJHburg said:

Unfortunately there was already a small newer street name Brooklyn Ave.  however I am not sure why they did not ask that street name to change to BV instead of this one aka Stonewall. 

Brooklyn Ave is off Siegle in a newer Pulte townhome community. 

I agree with both of these sentiments. If the city is going to go through the machinations and technicalities of changing a street name, then why cut corners? It wouldn't have required that much more effort to change a smaller, relatively insignificant street name concurrently, which could've easily been made a Place, Trace or Terrace. 

I've opined before that I think the city should have a regular, routine effort of changing street names city-wide. They've proven through this initiative that it's possible if only the political will is there. 

One example:  Trade Street continue all the way to Presbyterian/Novant at the east, and on its west end should continue past JCSU all the way up to 85. In my personal schema, 85 would become the universal break point between the old rural road names--which I want to preserve--and the city street names. So, in this case specifically, Beatties Ford would become Trade South of 85. The vestige of Trade no longer connected to Five Points would then be a great renaming opportunity for the city or even locally the Biddleville community.  

Elizabeth Avenue should not disappear, it should be reconstituted by renaming Charlottetowne Avenue to Elizabeth. Charlottetowne is, quite frankly, embarrassingly provincial and should be done away with regardless. I cringe every time I see it on Independence and 277 signage. I know it's supposed to commemorate the old mall--but it wasn't spelled CharlottetownE--just Charlottetown!!!! Adding superfluous "e"s to the ends of English proper names is always purely ridiculous affectation. Anyone who's actually been to England realizes it's not actually a thing there. (I know that sounds incredibly snobbish, but it's just...true.) Charlotte leaders should've realized this when it was named, but anyway let's correct a bad idea. 

On a similar vein, Fifth should continue through Five Points and then replace Idaho--why is there even an Idaho Avenue in Charlotte??--Rozelles Ferry still has plenty of length far beyond 85. I think it would be wonderful to have a sign for "West 5th St" on Brookshire as your driving east towards downtown, instead of "Idaho Ave"--but that's the superficial reason: It would just help make Charlotte a more integrated, in all the senses of the word, if it's major streets and avenues continued uninterrupted, and instead of letting real estate developers devise sometimes (often) questionable monikers for residential or business areas, you'd have strong major street names instead. 

I have dozens and dozens of other renaming proposals, which is why I think it should be a regular, routine operation of the city. None of my proposals are about getting rid of old names, just regularizing street names throughout the city so Charlotte looks and operates more like a world class city, with more than just a few continuous corridors with consistent names.    

[RANYC]

“Charlottetowne Avenue is embarrassingly provincial?”

anyone know what it cost the city to rename stonewall?

Edited July 1, 2022 by RANYC

[CLT Development]

56 minutes ago, RANYC said:

“Charlottetowne Avenue is embarrassingly provincial?”

anyone know what it cost the city to rename stonewall?

A whole lot less than the aforementioned ideas by @ertley. Brooklyn Village Ave has almost no businesses or homes that are addressed toward the street. All are perpendicular street addresses.

[videtur quam contuor]

This was some of the thinking when a portion of Second Street became MLK. The number of addresses on that portion was few. Some institutional or government addresses. Others with side street addresses. The Embassy Suites came after the change.

[atlrvr]

I mean, it's literally over 2000 households in apartment units that have to change their addresses, so that's not nothing.

[KJHburg]

3 hours ago, CLT Development said:

A whole lot less than the aforementioned ideas by @ertley. Brooklyn Village Ave has almost no businesses or homes that are addressed toward the street. All are perpendicular street addresses.

the Whole Foods and the entire Francis apartment complex had a Stonewall address right?  and all those apartments further down Stonewall 

[Richhamleigh, DC]

On 6/29/2022 at 10:49 AM, kayman said:

All direction of NCDOT comes from Raleigh not district offices. Also Metro Charlotte is split btwn the Division 9,  10, & 12 offices of NCDOT.  That's very inefficient as all 11 Greater Charlotte counties (Mecklenburg, Gaston, Iredell, Union, Cabarrus, Rowan, Anson, Stanly,  Cleveland, Catawba, and Alexander) should be all in the same NCDOT division or 2 divisions that are aligned with this region.

Another sign, you all should be complaining to your NC State House Representatives and State Senators:

https://www.ncleg.gov/findyourlegislators

If they're not responsive to your requests on demanding more changes to NCDOT then support and vote for their opponent this election cycle on November 8th or the 2024 election cycle. 

This is how we fix things demand change and stay on top of our state legislative representation to demand more division based decisionmaking from NCDOT and responsive decisions from the NCDOT leadership. 

Being in three divisions give you access to three different possibilities of money.  You don't want to be in one.  

Try learning about Prioritization and the role of regional transportation planning organizations.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Phillydog

[15895]

Charlottetowne is the best street name IMO. I wanted Charlotte’s soccer team (the Independence and then the MLS team) to be named Charlottetown FC. I also think it would be a cool neighborhood name. Much better than another NoDa, LoSo, SouthEnd, NorthEnd, etc. 

I like the historical nod to Charlotte’s past. I heard someone Charlotte was typically listed as Charlottetown and on British maps, it was always Charlottetown. 
 

Embracing historical names gives a more organic feel to an areas versus say Brooklyn Village (the village part just zaps away some of the historical connotation for me), LoSo, Gold District, etc. 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by AirNostrumMAD

[atlrvr]

In a win for Uptown leasing (and 201 S College in particular), it looks like this will be the permanent home for MUFG (currently operating out of WeWork).

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, atlrvr said:

In a win for Uptown leasing (and 201 S College in particular), it looks like this will be the permanent home for MUFG (currently operating out of WeWork).

What will be

[atlrvr]

201 S College (Charlotte Plaza)