Spatula

Wade feeds into Glenwood, and Western feeds into South Saunders. So really without Hillsborough you have Capital from the northeast, Glenwood from the northwest, and Saunders from the south. Anyone going directly east into downtown is going to take Hillsborough. It has a high traffic count because it has a lot of business all along its length, and it's the primary connection between NCSU and downtown. I'd say that's a pretty good excuse to keep it a thoroughfare street.

The thing is roundabouts probably aren't good for Hillsborough. The street gets used as a thoroughfare because it's good at that. With traffic slowed to a crawl on Hillsborough, it'll create a wall blocking transportation to downtown. Roundabouts are highway intersections. They're not pedestrian friendly. Other countries generally use roundabouts AS highway intersections. The best thing for Hillsborough would be to fix the sidewalk in areas where it's bad, and get rid of all the overhead power lines. While we're at it, replacing the current traffic lights with the type of cantilever lights downtown would be excellent.

I have thought about roundabouts for a bit. After this, I have come to the conclusion that they only work in situations where there are four or more possible turns, but the vast majority of traffic is heavy on just one turn. There's no good light cycle to deal with this situation. In this case, a roundabout does speed up traffic, because there's little competition for space in it, and the odd car coming out of the rarely used parts of the intersection won't have to wait fifteen minutes for their part of the cycle. Another good place for a roundabout is one where a left turn is impossible with stoplights, because the angle is too sharp. Putting a roundabout there enables the left turn, since you're really just making three right turns to do it. The Dunn/Hillsborough intersection is a perfect example of this, and there will be a roundabout there. I'm content with that. However, I don't want us to get into the habit of putting roundabouts on intersections just for the heck of it. Hillsborough is an important street for getting into downtown Raleigh, and crowding it with too many roundabouts to slow traffic to a crawl would probably hurt business downtown (and on Hillsborough) more than help.

The city is getting rid of the overhead power lines, right? If so, I imagine they'll upgrade the stoplights, wherever they don't intend to make a roundabout.