The ongoing multimillion dollar renovations of Hillsborough Street are scheduled to wrap up a year from now, according to City of Raleigh officials. The project, Hillsborough Street Phase Two Revitalization, aims to update the infrastructure of Hillsborough Street, improve its aesthetics and make traveling on Hillsborough Street safer for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.
Construction on Hillsborough Street formally began on June 21, 2016 and is scheduled to finish next summer, July 26, 2018, if the city approves the dates requested by the contractor, Pipeline Utilities Inc. The total project will cost $14.2 million.
Richard Dickie, project manager for the City of Raleigh, says that the changes will include one lane each direction, bike lanes and a median.
“The center of the road and bicycle lanes will have an additional buffer where there is on-street parking to protect cyclists from doors opening,” Dickie says.
Traffic circles will replace existing streetlights, sidewalks will be expanded to at least eight feet wide throughout the street and storm drainage will be fixed. Drainage has been an issue near Stanhope Student Apartments, and water has even flowed into IHOP three times during big storms.
Some of the project money has gone to funding public art that will be displayed in the traffic circles. The art will be focused on the history and culture of Raleigh. LED lighting, oak trees and crepe myrtles are going to be planted in the middle of traffic circles.
The project was originally scheduled to finish in November 2017, but the completion date has been pushed back to next summer, primarily because there are issues underground with pipes and contaminated soil.
“One of the things driving [the construction] is safety,” Dickie said. “The engineers had to juggle motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and mass transit when designing the updates.”
Dickie said traffic circles, which have been under scrutiny from some Raleigh citizens, will not eliminate vehicle collisions, but the collisions that do happen will be lower speed and fender benders, as opposed to T-bone accidents which are much more dangerous.
Improving the appearance of Hillsborough Street was also a major factor in the construction. The completed construction will also boost revenue for local businesses, which will in turn boost tax revenue for the City of Raleigh. According to Dickie, Hillsborough Street will be an inviting destination for tourists and citizens alike when it is completed.
Feedback has been primarily positive due to the city’s outreach to the University, the citizens, the businesses and others, before the project was started, Dickie said. This enabled the city to recognize issues they had not planned for and make adjustments as necessary.
NC State is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the project, but is a stakeholder and receives monthly updates from the City of Raleigh says Mike Kennon, NCSU assistant director of planning and operations for NCSU Transportation. The University reviewed the design and provided concerns specific to NC State about the construction to Hillsborough Street.
While pedestrians have been impacted by the construction, they will also be among the biggest beneficiaries of the completed projects, Kennon said.
“The City has bent over backwards trying to keep us apprised of changes or to remind us of construction phasing or when there will be shifts of traffic along Hillsborough Street that is going to affect us, either overall as a campus or specifically for Wolfline services. I appreciate how they have worked diligently to keep us informed”, Kennon said.
Dickie says that when the project is completed next summer, Hillsborough Street will be modern, refined and, most importantly, safe for anybody who bikes, walks or drives.
