I agree this area needs a lot of attention it is dangerous to walk there bc it is poorly lit at night and there is a lot of foot traffic which spills into oncoming vehicle traffic bc there's no sidewalk.

I beleive this area is all within the railroad right-of-way and is the railroads property and responsibility to add sidewalks or not, install lights, etc. See how just about equidistant from the tracks on the other side the sidewalk starts back up again?

Good point we think this area needs a sidewalk and a bicycle lane :)

I drive this area all the time and it's very hard to see pedestrians at night because this street is very dark. Please add more lights.

Not having a sidewalk makes it hard to get around to the several different restaurants like the Pit and Five Star.

I love to walk my dog here and I agree with spring fling this area needs some attention.

Hargett st needs a sidewalk I'm tired of walking on the dirt pathway.

Almost two weeks still no response? Maybe we will get sidewalk in 2020.

As I said, it's not up to the city or NCDOT to put in sidewalks here, as they don't own the property.

I disagree I believe the City does own this property. It's not that difficult to make a sidewalk that is less than 100 yards.

You can disagree all you want, but even if it's not the railroad's property (which it is, Norfolk Southern's to be specific) it's definitely not COR. If anything else (which again, it's not) the road is under NCDOT maintenance so they'd be the ones to determine if a sidewalk would be added.

It doesn't matter who owns the property, we have elected and appointed officials who can make it happen. The mere fact that you own a piece of land doesn't mean you can do, or not do, anything you want on it. Go look through SCF for many items where private property owners do things at the behest of city government.

The bigger question is probably how does the Union Station plan impact this intersection and is it reasonable to put in the sidewalk or wait until the Union Station changes for this intersection are complete. Personally I expect the Union Station plan will take so long to implement that the sidewalk should be fixed now irrespective of what the future plan for the intersection is.

DBdowntowner needs to learn his place and not speak on the city's behalf, unless he is a City employee. Thanks Kara

If you don't believe me or agree, that's fine. In the mean time, I'll continue to walk on Morgan St. instead...just one block up, where there's already a sidewalk and a nice bridge over the rail road tracks.

Is the city going to respond at all? What DBDowntowner said may be true. He (or she) may be okay with walking a couple of blocks out of the way, but others obviously are not okay with this idea. I believe the COR should respond to people in this area who have been commenting and voting. After all, what is the point of having this forum if COR will not respond.

Apparently sidewalks were discussed in yesterday's city council meeting. Although I'm not sure this is really a new sidewalk so much as just completing a part that should already be there. So do we need a petition? I don't mean to be snide, but it seems like that would have been a straightforward response from the city 6 weeks ago if that was the case?

Per the Raleigh Public Record:
http://raleighpublicrecord.org/news/city-council/2014/06/05/round-up-councilors-approve-walk-raleigh-pilot/

"City Could Lower Threshold for Sidewalk Petitions
Changes to Raleigh’s sidewalk petition process may make it easier for residents to get sidewalks put in their neighborhoods.

Councilors approved lowering the required number of neighborhood residents that must approve a sidewalk petition from 75 percent to 50 percent plus one.

..."

That's interesting, but agree it's finishing a sidewalk, not adding a new one. And I wonder how big a "neighborhood" is? Not a lot of residents in the immediate area there.

I opened a Sidewalk Petition Program request but received a response saying this type of street is not eligible for the Sidewalk Petition Program. They referred me to the Office of Transportation Planning who referred me to Jennifer Baldwin. She's out of the office today, I'll let you know when I hear back.

Note the response also said "Currently there is existing sidewalk on both sides of the street" which I take to mean there are supposed to be sidewalks on both sides of the street.

A number of See Click Fix issues have gotten lost in the system, and we are just now recovering them. My apologies for the very slow response to this post! Once again - many apologies!

If you need more information about the Sidewalk Petition Program, please contact Jimmy Upchurch (919) 996-4106 jimmy.upchurch@raleighnc.gov

If nothing else, the City owes us some sort of explanation as to why nothing is done to improve this portion of Hargett St. DBDowntowner may be correct that this stretch of property isn't owned by the City, but I don't see how ownership by a third party prevents the City from requiring the installation of sidewalks by that party or the City from unilaterally installing sidewalks on its own initiative. The status quo is unsafe, unsightly and embarrassing.

I contacted Jimmy Upchurch about this issue on June 6th and haven't had a response yet. I just sent another e-mail to him and Jennifer Baldwin.

So you want the city to pay for a sidewalk that doesn't belong to them with tax dollars? Why does the city owe anyone an explanation? The city has nothing to do with it.

Actually, that is exactly what cities do. This is not a sidewalk in someone's back yard, this is a sidewalk on a public right-of-way that's maintained by the city. Cities build roads, bridges, and sidewalks in what are called public right-of-ways. In some cases they require local citizens to pay for sidewalks directly. In some cases the require local citizens pay for the sidewalks through taxes. The 2013 Raleigh Transportation Bond was approved by voters and included millions of dollars for building new sidewalks:
http://www.wakeupwakecounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-Transportation-Bond-Project-Descriptions-v2.pdf. In this particular case a (small) part of the street and sidewalk right-of-way overlaps with the railroad right-of-way. Working out the details of roads and sidewalks where they intersect with railways is what we have city government employees for.

Sidewalks are installed in the City in one of three ways: by the development of the abutting property (developers are required to install sidewalk), by petition where more than 50% of the abutting property owners petition to have a sidewalk installed, and through the Capital Improvement Program sidewalk installation program. In this case any petition to install sidewalk must have the approval of the property owner, since this appears to be only one property in width. CIP sidewalk projects are prioritized based on need, and the list is long. This program mostly pays for large sidewalk projects along major streets, like the recently-completed project on Wade Avenue near Ridgewood Shopping Center. A list of current sidewalk projects is available here:

http://www.raleighnc.gov/services/content/PWksDesignConst/Articles/SidewalkProjects.html

The best way to get a sidewalk installed here is to encourage the property owner to sign a petition requesting this. More information on petition sidewalk projects is available here:

http://www.raleighnc.gov/services/content/PWksDesignConst/Articles/SidewalkPetitions.html

Who is the property owner?

Norfolk Southern and CSX Railroads both own rights-of-way here.

As part of the downtown plan update we are looking at all sorts of pedestrian connectivity issues with the objective to begin an infrastructure improvement program around these connections. This one, however, as much as I know people would love to connect the sidewalk, is a real non-starter for a couple of reasons. First, even if we were to pursue this right away it will take us about three years to work through a railroad encroachment with both NS and CSX. Railroads are notoriously difficult to work with and they are actively trying to eliminate crossing hazards, so the last thing they want to do is encourage people to walk across the tracks anywhere. Secondly, it's not in the pedestrian plan that we are working on for downtown Raleigh because we are eventually planning to close Hargett Street when the Northern Passenger Rail platforms are constructed for Union Station.

We're sorry this one is not an easy one to solve, but it is very difficult to justify the amount of resource necessary to complete this small section of sidewalk, when the pedestrian connection will disappear altogether in the future, where it will be very costly because of the property owner difficulties, and where there are so many other important pedestrian priorities throughout the City. If you'd like to talk this one over with our staff, please feel free to contact Jennifer Baldwin, who heads our pedestrian / bike planning efforts (jennifer.baldwin@raleighnc.gov)

Thanks very much for the very thorough answer, greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for that, COR.