Richhamleigh, DC

I counted 33 levels?

Copa envisions expanding service from RDU. RDU-SJO makes sense...

I am forced to use 95 between DC and Richmond every week. I've concluded that VDOT is comprised of morons. First, aside from 95, there's only one other north/south route, except for the perpetually clogged US1 within 50 miles of I-95. Next, VA counties keep approving 100's of subdivisions that are filled with cul-de-sacs. They never got the memo about connectivity. The lack of connectivity and dearth of north-south routes means local traffic has to use the interstate to get around the region. Interstate highways aren't supposed to be an alternative for terrible land use decisions and fatal patterns of development. (Don't travel north of Richmond at lunch or dinner time and god help you around Dale City during a weekend afternoon when people are out shopping.) Lastly, the "Express Lanes" are absurd - they should have followed New Jersey's model - Express lanes in BOTH directions. Bless Virginia's heart.

It's a good example of North Carolina not putting NC first. Screw MB.

How a $75 million infrastructure project in North Carolina could propel development along I-85 https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2024/04/16/granville-county-i85-water-sewer-development-nc.html?cx_testId=40&cx_testVariant=cx_45&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s In general this just pisses me off. We have got to start aligning our growth aspirations with our transportation realities. I-85 north of the I-885 interchange is two-lanes and frequently stop and go traffic, or just plain stopped. Part of this is the age and condition of the overpasses in Durham County. NCDOT has ZERO $ to improve 85 north of Durham and won't have $ for at least 20 years. Transportation $$ in the Triangle are dedicated to the widening of I-40 and I-85 west of Durham (in the Durham MPO area). Fortunately, Butner's 2040 Plan does call for more connectivity and more overpasses (not more exits) over I-85 to help reduce the need for local traffic to use the interstate. Butner 2040 also envisions bike and pedestrian connections over Falls Lake parallel to 85 to connect with Durham Greenways. Development follows transportation. Butner gets it. Any town or city that doesn't prove that they have planned and have funding for transportation improvements should be penalized in some way.

Lufthansa says it's looking for space near RDU to "support" its flight to Raleigh. This seems like overkill for a flight that will operate 5 days a week, or not?

The reality is that Tennessee and Nashville dont come close to media market sizes, economies, and population of North Carolina. MLB would be stupid to ignore NC.

Yikes. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/bankruptcy-documents-detail-gop-nc-governor-nominee-mark/story?id=108763847

Old but wirth reoeating. The Raleigh-Durham area, always seemed lika perfect fit for IKEA. https://wraltechwire.com/2023/04/20/ikea-plans-8-more-large-stores-in-us-as-part-of-2b-expansion/

I've thought about how with the rapid growth if Wilmington-MB that one day a new international airport, midway between the two centers, might be a interesting option. Imagine the airport connected to both by a commuter rail line linking the Wilmington and Myrtle Beach or at least, an interstate-standard freeway. Currently, the 2 metros are rapidly nearly 1 million.

Is there room for one of IKEA'S scaled down products?

Meanwhile, other states like Connecticut, are gearing uo to pounce on NC if Robinson is elected.

I think of Tampa and SD as being large metros and Orlando and Vegas are, as you say, global tourism destinations.

Air France now flies RDU -CDG. RDU has 8 international carriers lined up 2024. Iceland, Lufthansa, Air France, Copa, Aeromexico, Air Canada, Bahamasair, with AA operating the daily to London. I think only Austin comes close to RDU among mid-sized metro non-hub airports.

Indeed, CLT2014 -- I was seeing MSA but the metros are comprised of "metro divisions" not unique MSAs. Which makes the separation of Raleigh and Durham even less logical.

The Census Bureau compensated MYR by making it a CSA. How, I have no idea but it basically keeps the population where it was before Brunswick was rightly returned to ILM. Also interesting is how the Census Bureau in Table 8 uses the CSA population first DFW, HOU, ATL, TPA, etc. use the CSA populations. If they had done the same for CLT, MCO, and RDU for example, that Table would be very different.

Some of my pix of NC urban spaces

Some of my pix of NC urban spaces

Full-throated agreement. No Saks in Charlotte seems odd to me as well.

I take the site with a grain of salt. For example, their entry for Durham... https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/durham-population. There is a Durham, Ontario https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham,_Ontario but it's not bigger than 3000 people. I have a hard time imagining that Jacksonville, FL leapfrogged over Austin and Ft. Worth, TX to reach 1 million. Did Jacksonville, FL annex even more territory?!

Nashville, TN will have to rely on tourists to fill the stadium. As Kburg demonstrated, the population within 100 miles of Raleigh totally eclipses the competition and the location between GA and DC is perfect. They would be idiots to pick Nashville, IMHO.

FWIW - Came across the strategy/progress report for Eastrans where NS was involved in talks with us to operate passenger service. Given the success of Brightline, could this be the time for rail companies like NS to reconsider their positions on providing rail service in their corridors with specific infrastructure and development incentives? I don't know, but it's a thought. EastransStrategyMainDocument.doc

K'burg -- you might enjoy this... And, yes, I imagined the old bank building as the perfect station. The station is also envisioned to be a gateway for something I created called the "NC Lakes District" - an economic development plan wrapped into a scheme to promote tourism, agriculture, and historic preservation. Henderson Center City Catalyst 10.15.12.pptx

Back in the early 2000s I put together a proposal for commuter rail in eastern NC from Wilson to Goldsboro via Raleigh. NCRR, which owns the line between Raleigh and Goldsboro was on board. NS owns the line to Wilson through Knightdale, Wendell, and Zebulon. Before the proposal was hijacked by an incompetent politician and driven into the ground, NS entertained the idea of operating passenger service on their line in exchange for development rights along the corridor and public investment in improving the corridor. Since the goal of the project was economic development (not reducing car trips) and to encourage compact, walkable development in outlying towns - the opportunity was real. The way we got to that point wasn't by telling NS they had to do this or that but by engaging them in the vision and the role they could play in it. The project/vision was called Eastrans - and until the politicians got involved, it could have actually worked.

People like this guy pisses me off. Do they think their opinions matter? How can anyone take a person like this seriously when he doesn't do his research? For example, NC is a swing state. I get it, the national media likes to focus on the presidential elections only when painting states blue, red, or purple but to suggest that Georgia is more of a swing state is preposterous. They voted blue for President once since the 1990s (?) but the rest of the state - from governor on down is solidly red. And, oh by the way, the 2020 election was even more of a squeaker in GA than in NC but the DNC blew nearly its entire load on GA and barely looked twice at NC and still they barely won.