The City of Raleigh and Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. held the first public meeting concerning the possibility of Hillsborough Street roundabouts on Wednesday in Caldwell Hall.
Members of the Hillsborough Street Partnership presented two options for various placement of the roundabouts.
“Project A” calls for two roundabouts between Gardner Street and Enterprise Drive.
“Project B” places one roundabout between Ferndell Drive and Pullen Road.
The Hillsborough Street Partnership has been working on the project since August, Todd Delk, a Kimley-Horn engineer said.
Seven-foot medians are under consideration due to the presence of the University and the tendency for pedestrians to cross Hillsborough Street wherever they can.
“Our primary goal is to improve pedestrian activity,” Roger Henderson of Kimley-Horn said. “Roundabouts handle much more traffic than a signaling system can.”
George Chapman, a member of the Hillsborough Street Partnership, indicated pedestrian traffic is among the partnership’s concerns.
“This is not just a project about this neighborhood — it’s a project about how we handle pedestrian traffic,” he said.
Henderson said that by changing four lanes of traffic into two lanes of traffic, the roundabouts will make traffic flow smoother.
The partnership is taking advantage of students’ ideas as it is considering student design plans that will ultimately affect everyone on campus.
The two project choices stemmed out of the designs that the School of Design and engineering program contributed during February 2006, Delk said.
The cost of the project — related to the city’s budget — was a main topic of discussion throughout the meeting.
The city budget for the project is $3 million, Henderson noted. The projects are separated into two segments that fit into the budget.
“Project A” is estimated to cost $1.9 million and “Project B” is estimated to cost $2.4 million — just for the construction.
“I do not expect three million to achieve this design. More like 15-16million,” Chapman said, “Additional funds are available if the project warrants it.”
The importance of the Hillsborough Street appearance was also another main topic throughout the meeting.
The partnership considered various landscaping and utility options.
Among the utility possibilities was the idea of completely burying the utility poles as opposed to wooden poles.
“We can put in pockets of landscape to improve the area,” Jeff Moore ofKimley-Horn said.
If the Raleigh City Council approves the project, the construction willhappen during the summer of 2007.
“We’ve been working on this a long time; we’ve got more time to go,”Chapman said.?Delk commented on the turnout of the meeting — it was the first presentation opened to the public and the partnership encouraged attendees to fill out comment forms following the meeting.
“We had a very informed crowd and a lot of feedback from everybody,” Delk said. “We had a good representation of all of the businesses along Hillsborough Street.” The next step in the process will happen on Nov. 7 when the project is presented to the Raleigh City Council for approval.