Schedule

Past Public Engagement

April 25, 2023 Public Meeting

We had a in person public meeting at the Tarboro Road Community Center in April. During the drop-in style meeting we had the opportunity to talk with residents and businesses owners along the corridor, answer questions and hear their concerns. 

View Public Survey Results 

Design Plans 

• South of MLK Design - Brag and Blount Street - Person at Brag Street - Along this section of both corridors we propose adding a street light and a cross walk at Brag Street and buffered bike lanes. We also propose adding bump-outs at intersections along the corridor to both help slow traffic and allow for better visibility for pedestrians crossing the street. 
• North of Edenton Street Design - This section of both Blount Street and Person Street we propose to convert the two streets from their current one-way configurations to two two-way streets. Along Person Street we propose to include a parking protected bike lane along the one side of the streets and On Blount Street we propose to include a two-way cycle track on one side of the street and parking along the other side.  
• Delway Roundabout Design April 2023
• Wake Forest Road and Automotive Way Roundabout Design April 2023

Project Details

The Blount Street – Person Street Corridor Study was adopted in 2013, before the Downtown Transportation Plan or Wake County Transit Plan were in consideration, and before a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project was conceived. Accordingly, we will develop the Blount St and Person St Two-Way Traffic Conversion Project keeping these other plans’ objectives into consideration.

The Downtown Transportation Plan has objectives related to all types of travel and talks about assigning streets a modal priority and how to balance tradeoffs within a downtown setting. It discusses how high-quality BRT and bicycle facilities can impact other desirable street features like on-street parking and loading zones. 

The Wake County Transit Plan includes increased transit funding that will develop Frequent Transit Routes with the goal of a 15-minute interval service for 18 hours a day.  BRT service will use exclusive lanes, prepaid boarding stations with platforms, signal priority, and less frequent intermediate stops to provide quick travel times to Downtown.  The New Bern BRT project is in the design stage and will use a portion of Blount Street to access GoRaleigh Station.  The BRT project will further study the use of BRT lanes and stations by these Frequent Routes and by Express Buses to provide a broader range of service for these time-saving investments.  

The portion of the Blount Street – Person Street Corridor that is considered “Downtown” is between Shaw University and William Peace University. 
 
The City will need the approval of the North Carolina Department of Transportation for this project because both streets are NCDOT-owned and maintained streets.  

Because of preliminary traffic analysis and the functioning of the BRT, staff has chosen to not make any improvements to the section between MLK Boulevard and Edenton Street, and the two-way conversion will be from Edenton Street north. The section between Edenton and Hammond Road of both Blount and Person will remain one-way streets. 

Design Information

Our goal is to turn the Blount and Person Street corridor into a complete street, balancing the range of mobility needs by providing a place for all transportation types.
The project's design process is scheduled to take at least two years and will include extensive public input.

The design team developed design plans based on feedback we received from the our first design concept meeting's public survey, stakeholder feedback, and engineering judgement. 

In the summer of 2020 we conducted a corridor user survey to help our team understand how the people of Raleigh use the Blount and Person Street corridor. This information helped us assess how to integrate key aspects of the Downtown Transportation Plan, Wake County Transportation Plan, and BRT in keeping with the intent of the Blount and Person Street Corridor Plan.

In fall 2021, the team developed design concepts and asked for your feedback. We conducted a survey asking for you to tell us what options you liked best for the corridor. We also met with many of the stakeholders along the corridor and studied the public survey results and feedback we received from those stakeholder to help the team decide on the best design options for the corridor.