The infrastructure we build in our city often does more to divide our communities rather than reinforcing. What if instead of dividing the city, urban infrastructure stitched Raleigh together by creating perpendicular and parallel connections.

Our team studies three current infrastructure Venn diagrams – Capital Boulevard entering the city from the North, the Capital ‘split’, and the intersection of Jones and West Street. All three locations have overlaps of more than 4 multi-modal transit options – rail, road, pedestrian, and bike paths.

The resulting toolkit created a series of elements that were required to be present to create equitable space for each modal model. While simple in basic thought, many times road engineers focus on the road itself, and not all the things that touch the road (plants, recreational infrastructure, landmarks, crossings, homes, businesses, etc.). 

Our city is at its best when all the multi-modal options for transportation work together, think of each other, and provide scale-able amenities to be ‘good neighbors’ with next-door.