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Figure 8.4
Main Road Extensions Plan. This drawing
illustrates the new highway planned by the city and
state to improve north–south connectivity. We
suggested substantial design revisions to turn this
road into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard to serve
adjacent neighborhoods as well as moving traffic
from other parts of the city.
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station. The park space with its small stream would
also provide natural drainage from this urban core.
The West Raleigh Transit Station
Neighborhood 
(See Plates 24–26)
Current Conditions
The east–west road through this third sub-area is a
low-scale commercial strip corridor with office, retail,
and service uses in single-storey buildings generally
set back from the road. The area north of the road is
a mixture of some low-density residential neighbor-
hoods and small office-flex buildings. The TTAs had
proposed to site their West Raleigh commuter rail
station on land occupied by the North Carolina State
Surplus Property office and storage yard, a site with
good frontage onto adjacent roads that made it suit-
able for the park and ride lot planned by the TTA as
the initial station development. However, this sub-area
demonstrated to us great potential for a more intensive
urban use as a function of the new train service.
There is also a freeway interchange immediately to
the west of this subarea, providing excellent accessibil-
ity by car. To take advantage of this, the area to the
northwest has been developed as an office park, but
plenty of land remains undeveloped in this quadrant.
Plan Recommendations
Our master plan proposed that the West Raleigh
transit station area develop as a residentially-led
mixed-use urban village to balance the employment-
led TOD designed for the State Fairground station
area, but with one important amendment. We sug-
gested that a distinctive aspect of this TOD could be
the presence of a regionally significant civic building
such as a performing arts center. We didn’t pluck this
idea out of thin air, but recast an existing proposal by
the city of Raleigh to place such an arts center in a
nearby suburban location, isolated from any other
uses and accessible only by car. We believed that pro-
posal was shortsighted and likely to lead to increased
traffic congestion in a system that is already over-
loaded at peak times.
As a provocative alternative, we illustrated how the
performing arts center could fit on the State Surplus
Property yard in the midst of a new urban village (see
Plate 25). This site, located across the street from the
train station, also has excellent access from nearby
thoroughfares and the interstate immediately to the
west. Failing this specific proposal, we recommended
strongly that this site be reserved for some similarly
important civic and public building. These commu-
nity facilities should be integrated into pedestrian-
scaled districts that offer complimentary amenities
such as restaurants and public transportation. They
should not be strung out on a highway only accessi-
ble by car. We also added slightly more office devel-
opment than normal for this typology on account of
the adjacent office park and the site’s excellent free-
way access.
This special intensity of development would need
several parking decks, financed by public–private