Main to Centennial: An Epic Voyage Across NCSU

First off: My apologies for the late blog post. Tuesday, the usual content day, was my second day working in the City's Transit department. Things have been a little hectic. Hopefully, one day, a shiny new BRT line connecting Raleigh and Cary will earn me forgiveness for the tardy blog post.

Now, back to business...

North Carolina State University is one of North Carolina's premier R1 research universities and there is no dedicated multimodal path to get between Centennial Campus and Main Campus.

While this might be unheard-of at R1-class universities in other parts of the country, such as UT Austin, Tufts, Boston University, or the University of Michigan, it's what we have to deal with here in the City of Oaks.

This is a testament to how far we have yet to go before Raleigh truly becomes a city made for everyone, rather than just those with cars. That's part of the reason I am excited to be contributing to the larger Transit effort.

The best way to improve this suboptimal situation, the best way to affect change is to be the change we want to see in the world. This means one thing and one thing only... damn the cars, full speed ahead! Or in slightly less cheesy words: Ride your bike regardless of the infrastructure.

It's actually not that bad. Main Campus to Centennial is fairly easy if you generally follow the "Fast down, Slow up" mentality from this previous blog post.

Here's the heatmap. Darker lines are more traveled by bike/ped, lighter lines are less traveled.

Which route would you take between A and B?

There was an event I went to once that advocated the use of this route:

Now, this is an alright route... except for this:

and this is your greenway (it's very bumpy due to the roots growing under the path)

Instead of subjecting yourself to a brutal 6-lane stroad crossing and a terrible greenway, I posit that the wisest route is this one:

Now, this road includes two potential cruxes: One is a road without a bike lane, the other is the Centennial hill.

The road without a bike lane fortunately has sharrows, which, despite their mixed reputation, are better than nothing.

The Centennial hill up Bilyeu isn't bad at all. Just take your time 😄

Here's the crossing at Western.

It's a bridge, so you don't have to actually be in the line of fire of inattentive drivers. As soon as you cross it, you get a bike lane AND a beautiful multi-use path:

And here's Centennial Hill:

Plenty of space on that greenway.

Here's the only tough crossing at Centennial Parkway, but the road is usually pretty empty, unlike Western.

That's about it! You're there. On your way back, enjoy the nice downhill and make sure you cut off onto that bike path on your way back up Pullen at the Cates intersection:

Just remember... the best way to get more cycling infrastructure is to ride your bike.

Cheers! Happy pedaling.