nicholas

I was absolutely astounded last night to see that construction on Sugar Creek Rd between N Tryon and the Blue Line seems to have wrapped up. No construction signs, traffic cones, anything like that. All lanes now open on Sugar Creek.

Company wide (reportedly around 14k workers affected). Just a couple months ago I was of the opinion that Tesla would be virtually guaranteed to survive the ongoing shift to EVs. Now, I'm honestly not sure. Musk has rapidly gone way off the rails, and might single-handedly torpedo Tesla if his ridiculously obscene compensation package is reinstated. He already fired the entire Supercharger team in addition to huge cuts in other departments. The longer Musk is in charge at Tesla, the more uncertain its future is.

It looks like there are a pretty minimal number of driveways and intersection on US 74 between Lilesville and the Rockingham Bypass. Seems like it would be more cost-effective to just upgrade that existing section to interstate standards.

I think a serious bid by Tepper would depend heavily on how successful the Panthers and FC are over the next several years. Especially if public funds are involved (which I sure they would be). He hasn't done anything to endear himself to locals and I don't think he will garner much support until he calms down and his current teams start winning.

When did it close? I can't ever remember seeing it appear to be open for business. I'm guessing the owners unknowingly picked what became one of the worst spots in Charlotte for a nice steakhouse.

Not sure where to put this but the Hereford Barn Steak House building next to Graham St and I-85 has been demolished.

Why would you spend a couple extra dollars today to do it right, when you could instead spend like 1000x as much a few years from now after all the siding warps from baking in the sun?

That is fine if traffic is already mostly at a standstill, but if the open lane(s) can continue to serve the volume of traffic then people need to merge in a manner that lets traffic keep moving. A lot of drivers aren't courteous enough to let others zipper merge at the end of a lane. I am continually astounded by the number of people who drive around with their phone in hand. Especially newer cars that have Bluetooth and navigation. A couple days ago I passed three pretty new cars back to back to back on Graham St that were all driving below the speed limit and all piloted by people playing on their phones. Obviously each car was an automatic which I do not think people should be allowed to drive except in the case of physical necessity.

Not sure which thread to drop this into, but anyone know what's going on here? (Corner of Parkwood and Harrill). Lot looks a little large for just a SFH.

We are on a common sense shortage where we will cut as many corners as possible to save $1 today even if it means we have to spend $100 a decade later to fix something that we were too cheap to do the right way the first time.

This is what I've seen floating around the internet. A new connection arcing around to allow passenger trains to continue traveling through in the same direction. I'm mainly disappointed that the plan is to only build to a class 4 level, especially considering the amount of track that will have to be completely rebuilt and how much of it runs dead straight through the middle of nowhere. Obviously I don't expect trains to go blowing through small downtowns at mach 5, but 80 mph seems too slow.

50% is a literally comically unrealistic number at this point. We're reaching the stage where economic realities start to take over from well-intentioned but delusional policy. Ford's EV division just reported a loss of $1.3B (about $130k per vehicle) in Q1 of this year, and pretty much every other EV maker except Tesla is also losing big money on each unit. The sooner we stop continuing to cater everything to cars, the better. Most people don't even like cars or enjoy driving, and it makes everything suck for the few of us that do.

Was down in Rock Hill yesterday picking up some motorcycle parts and had some free time, so I walked around downtown. I never visited Rock Hill as a kid and don't have as much of a frame of reference, but the amount of clearly recent infill and renovations/restorations is surprising. There are definitely a TON of cleared/surface lots scattered around though (especially evident from satellite view) and it would really help tie things together if some of those could be redeveloped, particularly the massive White St parking lot. More trees would be appreciated as well (certainly this will be helped as existing young trees continue to mature). Was surprised to see there is basically an urban greenway connecting Winthrop with the heart of downtown along White St.

I've always heard that the Red Line was going to follow the tracks along Graham St and potentially have a station at Camp North End. If it follows that route then I don't see how or why it would need to use the spur through NoDa?

Right on cue...the Porsche Macan EV: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a60565604/2024-porsche-macan-ev-drive/ Priced close to the Model X but is a little smaller than that (and for now is lacking any obscenely powerful battery options to take on the Plaid). However the build quality and fit/finish will almost certainly be several notches above Tesla, and even though EVs are as exciting as a toaster I'm sure the Porsche will be more "engaging". I think the biggest question is how big of a sustained market is there for $80k+ EVs. For reference Tesla usually sells 20k-25k Model Xs a year here, and Porsche has consistently seen similar sales figures for its ICE Macans. I don't get the impression that a majority of traditional Porsche buyers are interested in EVs, but it will probably bring in a healthy amount of new buyers who don't want to take a chance on a similar vehicle from a startup.

I believe this is Kinship West that is visible from Graham St.

I think this needs its own thread or it will be getting posted in all of the South End and Dilworth threads. Not the best pics but I drove by earlier today and just one building remains.

A lot more demo within the past week at the Daniel Corp project. From earlier today

fixed

Late response but Kroger had a presence around Raleigh even into the late 2010s. The Triangle never really had any notable homegrown grocers survive the suburban era, and the biggest players from what I remember in the early 2000s were Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and Kroger. When I was a child my parents mostly shopped at Food Lion and Kroger, which at the time were the two closest grocery stores to our house. There were actually still a couple of Winn-Dixie stores still scattered around as well (the main one that comes to mind was located where Hendrick Toyota Apex is now on US 64). From the early 2000s, Harris Teeter and Walmart expanded pretty rapidly (with Aldi, Trader Joe's Lidl, Lowe's Foods, Publix, Wegmans, and Whole Foods all rapidly growing their presences by the late 2010s), while Kroger was much more modest. It was rare to see a new or even updated existing Kroger store, and by the mid-2000s most of Kroger's stores were starting to feel outdated, and many of those were located in moderately neglected shopping centers in less desirable parts of town. By comparison Harris Teeter's stores were substantially nicer. The only newer Kroger I can recall was at the intersection of Raleigh Blvd and MLK Jr Blvd; it must have opened sometime in the mid-2000s and had a fuel center at the corner of the lot, which was the first grocery store gas station I remember noticing as a kid. That store did not survive long and closed sometime in 2012 or 2013, and the gas station was demolished as well. That space is now a Rose's. I believe one of the final Kroger stores in North Carolina was in Garner where the Lidl and Harbor Freight Tools stores are now. It was open until late 2018. There was also one at the intersection of Falls of Neuse Rd and Strickland Rd in North Raleigh. It closed sometime in 2017 or early 2018. Surprisingly (given the wealth of the surrounding area) Food Lion took over that spot a couple years later.

^With EV credits and dealer/factory incentives that is one of the least expensive vehicles in America, and despite that basically no one is buying them. I doubt Vinfast could even give away many of those for free based on how bad the reviews have been. I only give them a couple of years before withrdrawing from the US market. Most of the upstart EV companies will disappear in the next few years. Canoo is seemingly on its last legs as of this writing. They recently bought up some of the assets of Arrival which went bankrupt, but had an office in South End for a while. Fisker is also on the brink of collapse. Lucid is losing obscene amounts of money on each unit sold. Rivian likely has the best chance to survive but is also losing money on each unit sold (just not as much, relatively speaking). Polestar has the support of Volvo and gobs of Chinese funding so it is probably safe, and obviously Tesla isn't going anywhere. I do think Tesla is underestimating its impending competition though. Especially from Porsche. Aside from multiple blatantly misleading Cybertruck publicity stunts, Tesla has sat on its hands for several years now. In roughly the same timeframe, Porsche has greatly improved its Taycan EV sedan and has multiple additional EVs well into development, including a Macan EV crossover and a 718 Boxster EV "sports" car. Porsche has a history of under-promising and over-delivering, whereas Tesla only seems capable of doing the total opposite. From what I understand it can take time for governmental agencies to adequately test new vehicles.

I swear every time Kevin is out of town, some sort of notable development gets announced somewhere around Charlotte.

Crane appears to be fully assembled at Oxbow. I'll try to pull over and get a pic on my ride back through in a little bit.

Knew it was only a matter of time https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/04/15/wegmans-is-coming-to-charlotte