Attendees at last week’s South Citizens Advisory Council meeting continued to try to find consensus about the best way to slow traffic on Cross Link Road between Garner Road and Dandridge Drive.
Some residents of the neighborhood are continuing their push to solve the speeding on the road by installing a four-way stop sign. A July 2015 report by Raleigh project engineer Thomas Fiorello argued against a four-way stop and city transportation planners have long proposed a mini-roundabout to slow traffic on the road.
Residents petitioned the town in 2012 to begin a traffic calming project on the road, and the city agreed. What’s still up for debate is the best way to do it.
One meeting attendee, Michelle Gardner, said some residents are concerned that cars will not stop for crossing pedestrians at a roundabout.
According to Jason Myers, a transportation planner for the city, there are 8,500 cars on Cross Link Road per day and 15 percent of them are driving at 50 mph or over, despite the 35 mph speed limit.
“Something needs to happen to slow people down because it is a very high speed street, and it should not be a high speed street,” Myers said.
The Cross Link Road project not only has implications for cars, but also for school buses and pedestrians.
City of Raleigh
A number of options for calming traffic on Cross Link Road are available
“We have determined that all stops at Cross Link Road and Dandridge Drive will be doorside,” said Stephen Sposato, transportation planner for the Wake County Public School System in a letter to Myers. “This means that students that live off Dandridge Drive will not cross Cross Link Road to board the school bus.”
Sposato said that this change is in response to a parent’s request, independent from the traffic calming project, and that it is not expected that construction of the mini-roundabout would create challenges for school bus operations.
As residents in the South CAC continue to debate their preferred traffic calming methods, the roundabout for the Cross Link Road South traffic calming project is awaiting city council approval.
