PlazaMidwoodGuy

Please God....let them rip up the bone-jarring and poorly-laid brick sidewalks at the corners of Central and The Plaza, Thomas, and Pecan. I'd like to take the workers who laid those sidewalks and force them to drive back and forth over them 100 times a day every day.

I'm going to get on my soapbox about one of my biggest pet peeves with NCDOT, which is the lighting (or lack thereof) on local state-maintained highways. Has anyone else noticed that the state FINALLY managed to get the lights working on Brookshire Freeway after years upon years of darkness, but they're now out on practically every other road? The lights along I-77 and I-85 are pretty much all out -- same for Independence Freeway. It's as if NCDOT said, "Okay Charlotte, we'll turn on the Brookshire Freeway lights for you, but we're gonna turn them off everywhere else." It's just ridiculous.

I don't care how good the food is. If you had to wait an hour for it to be prepared, especialy when the restaurant is slow, it ain't wurf it.

Zada Janes - I also hope it's just a rumor that it may close. While the service there is and always has been painfully slow, I like the food and I think the place adds to our neighborhood. I'm especially a fan of their breakfasts! Whisky Warehouse - Ate there for dinner New Year's Eve. We chose it because it was close by, quick, and relatively cheap eating, but I was underwhelmed to say the least. In its defense I will admit right off the bat that I'm NOT a sports bar/restaurant kind of person so in all fairness I have to factor that in. (Sorry, but I don't want to sit in a restaurant and try to eat a meal while loud hip-hop and/or rock music blares on the speakers and 10 television screens show 10 different athletic events of one type of another. Sensory overload for me.) As for the food, it was some of the most flavor-free eating I can recall. I agree with the opinions that this place looks and feels like a generic chain - nothing special, nothing great, nothing to write home about, which is precisely why it will probably make a fortune and be a huge success.

Oops...you're right. I did mean Hwy. 29 instead of 49. Have always had the hardest time keeping those two straight in my head!

Looks like we're going to end up with two overburdened, traffic-clogging intersections (a la Harris Blvd. and Hwy. 49 just down the road) within a few hundred feet of each other. While I realize there were budget issues that caused the alterations to this plan, I think this is going to be a big mess and is typical of how road projects around here get done half-a$$ from the beginning. I'm just sayin.....

There's been a lot of discussion about that sea of asphalt and that entire shopping center. It's my understanding that the owner (who's had the property for well over 30 years) has been approached countless times about selling and has no interest in it. There have been some posts about it in the PM thread over the last couple of years. I agree that it's hardly the best use for that space and as a PM resident for 16 years now, I've always hated having to look at it.

^^ Thanks for pointing that out. I checked out the satellite view on Google Maps and sure enough - there it was!

While attempting to check out in the incredibly overcrowded PM Harris-Teeter yesterday evening (Did they forecast snow?? Everybody and his brother was at that grocery store!) I was discussing with the manager that they really need to do something to improve that particular store. He said that H-T had plans in place to do a major expansion/renovation but that the City of Charlotte nixed them because they consider the building a landmark. Excuse me? Please tell me that's NOT the case. Charlotte has allowed countless ACTUAL landmarks to be torn down and plowed under over the years but they won't let Harris-Teeter change the woefully inadequate building?! Does anyone know what, if any, truth there is to this?

I noticed that yesterday driving back into Charlotte from Mooresvegas. The wind had blown part of the canvas off the sign and you could see where it said "I-485 / Spartanburg."

^^ In an ideal world, I'd agree with you about the Monroe Bypass. But good luck getting the powers that be in Union County to go along with minimizing the number of interchanges. It's the same way with I-485 around Charlotte -- the number of interchanges was drastically increased from the original plan, mainly due to pressure from developers who wanted to put strip shopping centers, office parks and cookie cutter subdivisions on as many spots as possible. And for the most part, Charlotte said "sure thing!" Look for the same in Union County, a place that's even worse than Charlotte-Mecklenburg when it comes to allowing developers to run amok and have their way with pretty much everything.

There's an article on Charlotte.com today (possibly in print as well - but I don't have a copy of the paper here) discussing the traffic mess at Midtown/Metropolitan, specifically the issue of trying to turn left onto Charlottetowne out of the Target/HD or Marshall's/Best buy lots and how the volume of traffic is only going to increase as the new stores open. There's some discussion as to the need for a traffic light there, although the city says they have no plans to install one. I'm sorry, I've said before and will say again that this was a poorly planned and designed project from the standpoint of traffic and street layout.

^^I've given up hope that we'll ever have interstate lights in Mecklenburg County as long as NCDOT has anything to do with it. They didn't even know it had been an ongoing decade-long issue until the mayor, the Charlotte Observer and the public started to call attention to it. Even then, when Barry Moose, the head of the local NCDOT division, managed to discover that Hwy. 24-27 actually went from Albemarle to a little town called Charlotte and saw the burnt-out lights firsthand, he said he was shocked as to the extent of the problem. Duh! We've been told for months that they were going to get the issue fixed, first on the John Belk and the Brookshire and then on 85 and 77. Really? Drive these roads at night - the full length of them all - and let me know how many lights you count that actually function. Not many. I understand the circuitry on I-277 is old, but what about the relatively new lighting system on I-85 in northeastern Mecklenburg? What about Indpendence? What about I-77? And don't even get me started about the stolen copper issue. There has to be another way to wire the lights and there SURELY has to be a way to make the access panels to the wiring boxes tamper-proof. As I've said before, I find it hard to believe that Charlotte, NC is the copper theft capital of the country. I've never seen such an inability to keep highway lights burning in any other place I've ever been - in this state, in this country, or in this world. Not that I have strong feelings about NCDOT incompetence or anything.

Back to my favorite pet peeve about Charlotte area interstates - burned out lights. Just this evening I drove back into the city on I-85 from Rowan County and the lights are working fine at the Concord Mills exit until right about the Mecklenburg County line. From that point on, until I exited at Sugar Creek, there were only a handful of functioning lights. It was raining, it was dark, and it was dangerous. It's inexcusable.

I personally think they did a poor job of planning for traffic around the whole Metropolitan development. As was pointed out, there's no dedicated left turn lane from eastbound Charlottetowne into the Target/HD parking and it's only one lane westbound. Trying to cross from the Target side to the BB/Marshall's side is a cluster and dangerous for cars AND pedestrians. Coming out of the parking deck onto Kings, you can only go right, which is fine. But as I've mentioned in this thread before, there is then no arrow for left turning traffic from Kings onto Charlottetowne, so not only do some cars not make it through the light cycle if they're trying to turn left, it's hard to see oncoming traffic due to the cars sitting across the intersection, which is dangerous. And it's just going to be worse when Best Buy, Trader Joe's and the other retail opens up - in addition to the residential traffic from the Metropolitan condos.

Imagine -- another building in Charlotte that has some charm, character and architectural interest being torn down. What a shock.

I always did and still do find it beyond belief that Charlotte is the copper theft capital of the world. I've never been to or heard of any other city that had such an issue with keeping streetlights functioning along its highways from the theft of copper wiring - or any OTHER reason for that matter! Is it too much to expect that NCDOT could check into how other states manage to handle this problem and then, just perhaps, do the same thing here?

I'm not much of a rainbow flag waver and I'm not typically all that into Pride festivities (in Charlotte or any other city for that matter) but I agree that it was better this year. Of course, part of that for me may have just been that it wasn't as hot as the surface of the sun like it was last year. I liked the fact that it was more spread out and that they expanded the tents/booths into Trade Street, so it really felt like a larger event and didn't feel so claustrophobic. I only saw one protester and he was at the corner of Trade and Cedar, holding a sign that said the usual stuff - something to the effect of how much God hates us. But he wasn't talking or yelling and he almost looked a bit lonely and bored, since he was being COMPLETELY ignored, which is always the best way to deal with those people.

If, God forbid, it's true that CMC is buying up this parcel of land in addition to what they've already acquired on East Boulevard, what do they plan to do with it? Is it going to be turned into hospital office space? If so, and the city and DCDA is approving all this, just what was the point of spending the money to narrow East Blvd. and put in the medians and bike lanes? Is East Blvd. going to become one giant CMC office park?!

Here in the P-M we got a decent shower but not nearly as much as many parts of the city. Not to sound like I'm whining but I watch this stuff pretty carefully and the last month or so our neighborhood seems to miss out on rain showers and thunderstorms that hit other areas of town. Boo hoo.

I didn't understand that part, either. How can he be forced to pay a fine for breaking a law that is unconstitutional and can't actually be upheld?? Lunacy. I did like what he had to say, however: "Apparently the DA's office has a better understanding of our Constitution than the Raleigh Police Department." Nice dig!

^^I certainly hope they do get that bridge up ASAP. With the streets the way they are at the moment I think traffic flow is going to get seriously clogged up once the stores start opening in Metropolitan. I personally don't think they did such a great planning job where traffic flow is concerned around this whole project. For instance, if you're coming eastbound on Charlottetowne and want to turn left into the Home Depot/Target deck, there's no turn lane. Worse, when you come out of the parking deck onto Kings you can only turn right (which is fine), but then if you need to turn left onto Charlottetowne, there's no protected arrow there. I sat through THREE!! light cycles the other day trying to turn left at this intersection. Very frustrating.

No, an NCDOT that has allowed most of the interstate lights to go dark in Charlotte over the years and is just now beginning a program to fix them. If you scroll back a page or two in this thread you'll see plenty of info on this issue.

I couldn't agree more! I remember there being an issue about copper theft at one point in the past, I'm talking 15-20 years ago, but I didn't realize it was still an issue. Can they not lock the panels on the base of the light posts well enough to make them basically impenetrable?

The results of the vote are certainly great news! The sad part is that the "gay thing" was even an issue, courtesy of those 3 bigoted board members, not to mention so many parents and county residents. It's people like them that serve to reinforce precisely why there IS a need to add sexual orientation to the anti-bullying policy.