Downtown Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street: from ‘boring’ to booming

I spent the day earlier this year cycling around Raleigh, the largest city in the Research Triangle area and the capital city of North Carolina. Raleigh is anywhere from 30-50 minutes away from Durham by car, bus, or train, depending on traffic. In recent years, the city has increased its profile as a cycling haven through bike lane installations across downtown and continued investment in one of the most underrated greenway networks in the entire country. I’ve always enjoyed bringing my bike to Raleigh to ride around or renting a bike from their bikeshare program.

However, Raleigh faces barriers to bringing this same sort of vibrancy to its downtown streets. There are a myriad of factors that have led downtown Raleigh’s main drag, Fayetteville Street, to garner a reputation as ‘boring’ and ‘soulless’ (these are the City’s words, not mine). For context, Fayetteville Street is predominantly anchored by offices with dining and drinking establishments sprinkled around. The street was a pedestrian mall closed off to car traffic from as early as the 1970s, though cars were allowed back on Fayetteville Street during the mid-2000’s due to limited success of the pedestrian mall and has remained so since. The City does close Fayetteville Street off for frequent festivals downtown, especially during the warmer months, which draw out massive crowds from all over the region, state, and even the country.

Aside from festival season, Fayetteville Street’s empty feel has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as remote work has dramatically reduced the number of commuters coming into downtown Raleigh for work. The trend is observed region-wide, spiking the Triangle’s already-staggering direct office vacancy rate of 13.3%¹. This particularly hits Fayetteville Street hard as the home of several of downtown Raleigh’s office buildings and spaces.

Raleigh’s car dependency also plays a role in this hollowing out of downtown. Walkscore.com rates Raleigh as a car-dependent city primarily because of its sprawling exterior and the many amenities and places of employment that have spread beyond downtown². Raleigh’s many developments in areas such as North Hills and Brier Creek demonstrate this sprawl in real-time. These developments and more are located beyond the downtown core and currently have poor bus service and limited pedestrian infrastructure, a consequence of extending municipal resources to meet the needs of a sprawling community.

The low-density layout of the city paired with the pandemic’s impact on remote work has reduced foot traffic dramatically on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh just as it has in urban areas across the country. This reduction in people walking, working, and meeting along Fayetteville Street has the potential to bring crime instead of business– and in some instances, already has– due to less civilian eyes being on the street³. This is the conclusion that the Downtown Raleigh Alliance along with local businesses located along the strip have arrived to and are seeking to combat through increased activity⁴.

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So how do we ‘fix’ Fayetteville Street? One of my favorite Twitter accounts, @betterstreetsai, might have the answer to that. The account uses AI to generate street transformations that encourage alternative methods of transportation. Below is their rendering of a car-free Fayetteville Street:

The obvious retort could very well be that the Fayetteville Street pedestrian mall experiment already failed and isn’t worth repeating. However, this is a very different Raleigh from nearly 20 years ago when the mall closed, and a very different Raleigh from nearly 50 years ago when the pedestrian mall was first designed. Reorienting Fayetteville Street to reflect the times, whereas office spaces are replaced with residential, dining, retail, and entertainment spaces, brings more people out and about. 

This constant foot traffic generates dollars for the local businesses nearby while simultaneously reducing crime without having to increase law enforcement presence in the area. Furthermore, efforts such as Raleigh’s bikeway expansion and service improvements to the local and regional bus systems would enable new Fayetteville Street residents living in the heart of downtown Raleigh to live car-lite or car-free lifestyles. This reduction in downtown car travel will pay dividends as Raleigh currently struggles to manage its sustained growth in terms of both traffic and space.

The densification of downtown Raleigh is crucial for the coming years as Raleigh’s transit service rolls out its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines. Raleigh’s planned BRT lines, the first of which just broke ground and is preparing for a 2025 launch, will cut down on car trips made from downtown to Raleigh’s main hospital WakeMed and communities in East Raleigh. Eventual service will extend to nearby major cities and suburbs such as Cary and Garner⁵. These transit developments must have denser, more accessible housing and amenities built alongside it if there’s to be cohesive improvement to Raleigh’s excess of car traffic and its simultaneous dearth of foot traffic.

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As more people move to the Research Triangle in the coming years, I’m excited to see Raleigh and the region’s other communities transform in a way that empowers residents of all backgrounds to utilize active mobility. This change, when implemented properly and equitably, can benefit underserved communities that historically have limited access to automobiles and have bore the brunt of car dependency at their very doorstep. How the City proceeds with Fayetteville Street’s redevelopment in the wake of the pandemic will set the tone for who exactly our region’s downtown areas are built for, whether it be solely for motorists or for folks of all mobility methods.

Sources

1. Eanes, Z. (2023). ‘Raleigh’s office vacancy rate is expected to keep rising thanks to remote work,’ Axios Raleigh. https://www.axios.com/local/raleigh/2023/08/02/triangle-office-vacancy-rate-remote-work-raleigh

2. ‘Raleigh, NC,’ Walk Score. https://www.walkscore.com/NC/Raleigh

3. Coffey, S. (2023). ‘Downtown Raleigh safety back in spotlight in wake of Moore Square shooting,’ ABC11 WTVD. https://abc11.com/moore-square-downtown-raleigh-crime-shootings/13965788/

4. George, T. (2023). ‘Downtown Raleigh group battles Fayetteville Street’s ‘boring’ image,’ ABC11 WTVD. https://abc11.com/amp/raleigh-fayetteville-street-downtown-crime/13971608/

5. Gallup, J. (2023). ‘Raleigh Council Accepts Funding for Bud Rapid Transit, Approves Redevelopment South of Moore Square,’ INDY Week. https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-council-accepts-funding-for-bus-rapid-transit-approves-redevelopment-south-of-moore-square/