Uptown Charlotte Street and Sidewalk Plans

[Spartan]

To add to Second Ward-

Expect some pretty major traffic changes in the next few months. The City's conversion of the Brevard/Caldwell one-way pair to bi-directional traffic, which will happen in conjunction with the I-277 intersection improvement, is imminent. They are already removing the median along Caldwell between 4th and Trade. I also heard that the I-277 intersection ramps on Caldwell will open in a couple of weeks.

[Andyc545]

To add to Second Ward-

Expect some pretty major traffic changes in the next few months. The City's conversion of the Brevard/Caldwell one-way pair to bi-directional traffic, which will happen in conjunction with the I-277 intersection improvement, is imminent. They are already removing the median along Caldwell between 4th and Trade. I also heard that the I-277 intersection ramps on Caldwell will open in a couple of weeks.

[New Name]

For two months they have been tearing up the median from Southbound Caldwell which diverts to 4th St. They've been widening the Northbound side of Caldwell in what I assumed was anticipation for 2 way street. But now they have repainted the turn lanes for Northbound Caldwell. Why would they do that?!

[dubone]

It is pretty cool to see the progress on converting Caldwell to a two way street south of 5th St. They have really made progress. You can see, though, that they will really need to remove the lane closure for The Park, unless they happen to let it be one lane southbound for that block for a while. (They could get away with that considering it was zero lanes southbound for a long time).

My main concern is just how wide it is on the section alongside the Nascar Hall of Fame. If you see where the curb is being built, it will be massive from curb to curb. I sure hope they aren't trying to build a huge road there like they often do in the suburbs with tons of turn lanes, as that really serves as a divide that is tough on pedestrians. It is possible, though, that they plan to build a nice large median to give it a boulevard effect so close to tourist attraction.

[Bikeguy]

It is pretty cool to see the progress on converting Caldwell to a two way street south of 5th St. They have really made progress. You can see, though, that they will really need to remove the lane closure for The Park, unless they happen to let it be one lane southbound for that block for a while. (They could get away with that considering it was zero lanes southbound for a long time).

My main concern is just how wide it is on the section alongside the Nascar Hall of Fame. If you see where the curb is being built, it will be massive from curb to curb. I sure hope they aren't trying to build a huge road there like they often do in the suburbs with tons of turn lanes, as that really serves as a divide that is tough on pedestrians. It is possible, though, that they plan to build a nice large median to give it a boulevard effect so close to tourist attraction.

[dubone]

Possibly, but given the massive distance between the curbs, if it isn't a wide median involved, then I'd probably want avoid this stretch on a bike like the plague, as it'd be 3-4 lanes per side. We'll see how it goes, and I think they've been trying a bit harder to avoid that type of massive street design, without plenty of mitigation for bikes and pedestrians, so I'm hopeful.

[orulz]

The Center City Transportation Plan (PDF linked in an earlier post from this thread) shows Caldwell as having 3 lanes in each direction with no median and no parking between Stonewall and MLK.

My question is, why is there a need for 6 lanes for this block, but only 4 lanes north of MLK and south of Stonewall? Seems unnecessary, but my guess is, it's simply a case of opportunistic widening. The NHOF project presented an opportunity to widen the right of way for Caldwell, so they simply took the opportunity and are making the street extra wide.

[Charlotteman]

Possibly, but given the massive distance between the curbs, if it isn't a wide median involved, then I'd probably want avoid this stretch on a bike like the plague, as it'd be 3-4 lanes per side. We'll see how it goes, and I think they've been trying a bit harder to avoid that type of massive street design, without plenty of mitigation for bikes and pedestrians, so I'm hopeful.

[Miesian Corners]

The Center City Transportation Plan (PDF linked in an earlier post from this thread) shows Caldwell as having 3 lanes in each direction with no median and no parking between Stonewall and MLK.

My question is, why is there a need for 6 lanes for this block, but only 4 lanes north of MLK and south of Stonewall? Seems unnecessary, but my guess is, it's simply a case of opportunistic widening. The NHOF project presented an opportunity to widen the right of way for Caldwell, so they simply took the opportunity and are making the street extra wide.

[dubone]

I may be wrong, but it seems even wider than just 3 lanes per side with no median. Hopefully if so, it means they'll add a median and not do 3 lanes PLUS a turn lane, and just a double yellow line. I agree with Orulz that it seems like they are making this section too wide because the CAN. Otherwise, it seems like it is incredible unnecessary considering South is 2{sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}}2 and Caldwell north of MLK is 2{sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}}2, so where does that 3rd lane go?

What is going to happen is that it will become the section for speeding just like they have just fixed on the section of South Blvd a few blocks south of this that was too wide.

At minimum, they ought have street parking in the off hours to help calm traffic a bit.

I do realize that this is pretty much now the continuation of South Blvd, rather than having that traffic be dispersed onto two one-way roads, but it is really disappointing that they are building out something that is possibly going to be very scary for pedestrians in a location that will see a significant rise in pedestrian activity.

[dubone]

In looking back over the CCTP, this is the only stretch of road that is 3{sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}}3 in the entirety of uptown, so it is going to be the worst street for pedestrians with 6 lanes to cross, and to lack a median will make this just as bad for crossing than getting across South Blvd at the 485 end of the Lynx. They are truly nutty to think that this is going to be busier that anywhere else uptown. (Granted they have plenty of 3 lane one-way streets.)

Part of handling traffic is to not have bottle necks. If this is two lanes before and after the block, there will be a bottleneck in each direction!

I really can't stand when brand new stuff repeats the same mistakes that they are spending dearly to replace in other areas.

[Miesian Corners]

I may be wrong, but it seems even wider than just 3 lanes per side with no median. Hopefully if so, it means they'll add a median and not do 3 lanes PLUS a turn lane, and just a double yellow line. I agree with Orulz that it seems like they are making this section too wide because the CAN. Otherwise, it seems like it is incredible unnecessary considering South is 2{sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}}2 and Caldwell north of MLK is 2{sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}}2, so where does that 3rd lane go?

What is going to happen is that it will become the section for speeding just like they have just fixed on the section of South Blvd a few blocks south of this that was too wide.

At minimum, they ought have street parking in the off hours to help calm traffic a bit.

I do realize that this is pretty much now the continuation of South Blvd, rather than having that traffic be dispersed onto two one-way roads, but it is really disappointing that they are building out something that is possibly going to be very scary for pedestrians in a location that will see a significant rise in pedestrian activity.

[Spartan]

Just a thought- it could be tied to some NCDOT capacity requirement because of I-277. They have a tendency to require more than is necessary. Just look at the Charlottetown/Stonewall runway... I mean "exit" from I-277. And even the new one onto Stonewall.

Another thought is that they are building in two through lanes and a right turn lane. Why and if its needed is a legitimate question.

I will also point out that the pedestrian environment on that block is pretty horrible as it is and the new NASCAR building won't do anything to help it, so IMO its not much of a loss since the buildings around the area have already been approved and will not likely change in the foreseeable future.

As for bike lanes, if you look at the city's Bike Plan, it looks like there are "share the road" markings planned for South Blvd at some point but they stop at Morehead, so it is conceivable that they might extend that into Uptown. Sharrows might not do much for inexperienced bikers, but they do help. You can see that map here.

[dubone]

They have now paved part of this new section of Caldwell Street so the scale is now a little easier to see. It pretty much IS 3 lanes per direction with no median (although I suspect they'll do the miniature concrete median as they have added to the block north of this on Caldwell to avoid people from turning left from a driveway across so many lanes of traffic.

Basically, there are 3 lanes of old asphalt and the brand new asphalt to the new curb next to the Nascar Plaza is about the same width.

[Spartan]

There's going to be a median on Caldwell and on Stonewall too.

[symsdogg]

Just a thought- it could be tied to some NCDOT capacity requirement because of I-277. They have a tendency to require more than is necessary. Just look at the Charlottetown/Stonewall runway... I mean "exit" from I-277. And even the new one onto Stonewall.

Another thought is that they are building in two through lanes and a right turn lane. Why and if its needed is a legitimate question.

I will also point out that the pedestrian environment on that block is pretty horrible as it is and the new NASCAR building won't do anything to help it, so IMO its not much of a loss since the buildings around the area have already been approved and will not likely change in the foreseeable future.

As for bike lanes, if you look at the city's Bike Plan, it looks like there are "share the road" markings planned for South Blvd at some point but they stop at Morehead, so it is conceivable that they might extend that into Uptown. Sharrows might not do much for inexperienced bikers, but they do help. You can see that map here.

[dubone]

The Charlotte 2009-2013 Capital Investment Plan is a wealth of info.

http://www.charmeck.org/NR/rdonlyres/eu4d5...pleteFY2009.pdf

For the most part, because of our paltry local involvement in building roads (relatively speaking), the stuff that is actually funded is quite minimal.

Of course, the Brevard-Caldwell construction is the main work that is funded uptown. They also included 5m for general funding of the Center City Transportation Plan.

They do include the Stonewall land sales in the funding for some of the work, so it will be interesting to see what they will need to change now that that has slowed.

It is just outside of uptown, but they also include $3m from the bonds that just passed for Pearl Street bridge which replaces the old Baxter St bridge. It can't be considered Baxter, as that street was redirected to intersect with Metropolitan Avenue. What is particularly awesome is that the city is actually reviving a historic street name that disappeared except. Pearl Street Park is still there and named as such, but Pearl Street itself is caput. This new bridge will apparently be named Pearl Street. I hope they can eventually extend that so that it connects to McDowell via the other section of Baxter, as the Pearl Street Bridge has an alignment at the edge of the park, so it wouldn't ruin the park by reconnecting the streets.

They also include $7m for rebuilding Stonewall to improve pedestrian infrastructure. That means Stonewall might be closer to what was envisioned in the Second Ward Plan from Charlottetowne Ave to Brevard.

[i guess I'll post some observations for outside of uptown in the general roads thread.]

My other main point of interest is in the cost estimates for some of the unfunded projects in the CCTP that I really like because to fix gaps in connectivity. It lists the price tags for them, which all seem quite reasonable and seem almost certain to be built eventually now that it is in the plan.

- A bridge across Belk Frwy to extend Euclid to Stonewall costs $8.1m.

- Extending MLK/2nd from Graham to Cedar under the railroad tracks costs $14.2.

- Rebuilding Brevard and Caldwell to bidirectional streets in First Ward costs $3m.

- Extending 5th Street with a bridge across Little Sugar Creek to Kings Dr costs $7m.

It seems perfectly reasonable to to expect that these will be factored into future bonds later in the decade and all will go a very long way to improving connectivity uptown and mitigating the high-capacity car-centric corridors that dominated transportation planning for too long.

[atlrvr]

The 5th St. re-connection is probably best bang for the buck in my opinion, though I support each of these projects.

[dubone]

Luckily, they are all on the books and none are prohibitively expensive, so it seems that over the course of the decade, they'll build them out. The 5th Street extension to Kings and the Euclid extension to Stonewall are both very important to be built eventually as they help to add connectivity to large gaps created by Belk Freeway. 5th Street adds a connection where there is a 3 block gap and Euclid adds a connection where there is a 4 block gap (and because South does not connect to Morehead, it is a 7 block gap for Morehead travelers).

5th may also provide an opportunity for a full intersection with Morrow St (the service street for the power station there) and the Independence onramp making that street a useful street parallel to the freeway and additional connections to get on the freeway.

I support almost all of the sweeping changes in the CCTP. It is good to see these projects listed out and estimated, in addition to what appears to be $5m a year for misc changes that can support random sidewalks and other changes.

Consider that many of CCTP changes in 3rd Ward are funded as part of the baseball stadium plans (4th, Mint, Poplar), the 2nd Ward changes are either already under construction or are part of the Brooklyn Village/2nd Ward Park plans (new street network on Marshall Park block, Brevard, Caldwell, Stonewall), and the 1st Ward changes are part of the 1st Ward Park/Levine/BB&D projects (10th extension, Brevard, Caldwell, Market). All the activity happening right now will go a very long way to rebuilding the grid and reduce some of the one-way streets that visitors dislike.

[New Name]

What will Stonewall look like when all the construction is done? Anyone know?

[Spartan]

It will vary depending on where you are, but generally speaking it will look like the section between McDowell and Charlottetowne. The area near Caldwell/South will be 6 lanes with turn lanes, medians, etc. which will be ridiculous.

[New Name]

Will Stonewall have a median all the way from McDowell to (where) Tryon? Lynx? NASCAR? Will there be trees in the median? Anyone ever seen a rendering?

[orulz]

According to the CCTP, Stonewall will have a median as far west as Brevard. It will be 4 lanes throughout uptown. Sidewalks will be 16-22' wide. Not sure about turn lanes though. They say Stonewall will have a "special design based on conditions".

[New Name]

^Thanks!

[Mobuchu]

Wasn't sure where to put these, but here is the new interchange at Stonewall and Caldwell

7-19-09