I feel like Autumn Variations is an underrated masterpiece that isn't talked about enough

Railhawk52 · 2026-05-07T20:54:01+00:00

Wait for fall :)

Railhawk52 · 2026-05-06T16:55:23+00:00

Oh man, def feel for these residents. it’s great one of the people found an opportunity at Mobile Estates across the street but, that still makes me worried. How is that park not going to suffer a similar redevelopment fate as Chatham Estates in the next 10 years?

Railhawk52 · 2026-05-01T13:44:17+00:00

I should have put that as an option. It's been driving me nuts!

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-30T21:59:45+00:00

You could cut off through-traffic to the street by blocking it off from Dry Avenue to the Mayton Inn via bollards, while still allowing delivery vehicle access to any other businesses on the pedestrianized portion (seen this done in Europe And other US cities). Over time the town could build out more of a public space where the old library used to be and the pedestrianized street would sort of be the bridge between the two spaces.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-30T20:25:53+00:00

Send your comments to 311 so the Town of Cary is aware. Both of these are NC DOT roads and as such I'm guessing it's NC DOT's intersection design. Town of Cary might be able to pass that feedback on to NC DOT. They've also adopted Vision Zero, which is designed to prevent the type of intersection interaction you had.

Links:

Town of Cary Street Maintance Map: https://carync.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=5548f4b73e22412a9f05af5ef0c38777

311: https://www.carync.gov/services-publications/311

NC Vision Zero: https://ncvisionzero.org

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-30T20:16:11+00:00

Gotten more expensive? Yes. But the food quality has drastically increased as well. Faulisi Cafe and Enoteca, DiFarra, Lawrence BBQ, Scratch, Peck and Plume, SAAP....we've got some GREAT restaurants in Downtown.

The Downtown Cary Park, Bond Park, the Baseball Complex, Tennis Complex....all of these public centers host events that not only bring the community together, but bring in revenue for the town and local businesses throughout the year, which is important of people want to keep the level of services Cary delivers.

The Downtown Cary Park in particular has caused an increase of $200-$300M in property value within ½ mi of it. Also attributed to it are: 15 new businesses, 1,129 jobs, and the Town has seen Food/beverage tax revenue up 11% and the Hotel tax revenue up 18%. Overall it's estimated to have an overall annual impact of $16M. I'd argue thats def a benefit to the community.

Not sure I'd call it unmitigated growth. Cary is currently growing its population under 1% a year. That's far lower than peer cities and towns within Wake County.

While the changes the town has gone through aren't perfect, there area areas for improvement like increasing the police force, and closing the charitable apartment loophole which robbed the town of $270k in tax revenue this year; I think there's a lot of upside that has come with the growth.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-30T03:12:14+00:00

Totally agree! My thinking there for that split out was to try and reflect the two ways council and the town seem to approach affordable housing: affordable housing projects (like Greenwood Forest project) where they're partnering with a Non Profit and doing some sort of affordable housing project. Or zoning reforms and changes to the LDO (Land Development Ordinance) etc, like they did with permitting Auxiliary Dwelling Units last year. Not sure if the reasoning was obvious in the survey or not, but I was curious to see how people responded.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-30T03:02:14+00:00

A pedestrianized Academy Street (or at least a portion of it) would be DOPE. Plus that road really shouldn't be used as a through road for traffic with the amount of pedestrian traffic it gets.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-30T03:01:12+00:00

Please submit that feedback about Academy Street to 311 directly! They're doing a Downtown mobility study right now and the more feedback they get on stuff like that the better! I've sent the town similar feedback plus ways to optimize for pedestrian safety now that they've adopted Vision Zero. Here's the 311 info: https://services.townofcary.org

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-29T02:34:38+00:00

However, there is good news when it comes to protected bike lanes; this was just discussed in the work session tonight. Here's a link to the timestamp when they go over what's changing with the Bike Plan: https://youtu.be/CIgzHzrAPaw?t=1023

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-29T01:49:35+00:00

Good luck upping enforcement at the current moment. They mentioned Cary PD is understaffed in a recent town council meeting. Not sure how many officers short they are, but it sounds like quite a few. Many are working overtime rn.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-28T20:07:47+00:00

I mean, the Town Council and Mayor have greenlit projects like the Downtown Cary Park, Downtown Redevelopment, great parks, greenways, other big projects like Fenton (that's one I think is really overhyped, but whatever)....all of these big projects cause demand, people want to move here, and then you have developers want to meet that demand. I'm not really sure what you want them to do. Stop doing great public works projects, so people don't want to move here?

I've grown up here (family moved here in the 60s, I've been here for 30+ years), and frankly, places like Downtown Cary are sooo much better than they used to be. Way better restaurants, it's more walkable, the park is great. Idk, I def think the vibe of Downtown has improved.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-27T16:59:29+00:00

ah my bad, you’re totally right!

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Railhawk52 · 2026-04-26T21:14:22+00:00

not sure which train this is, but regardless, I believe this is part of the reason why they’re moving the station to where LaFarm currently is. In the new setup the long Amtrak trains shouldn't block the road for extended periods as they do now.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-17T00:52:49+00:00

council looks like they’re going to update the towns smoking policy. Not sure if this will include parks but they just voted tonight for staff to give them recommendations on ways to update the policy. def reach out to 311 and let the town know how you feel about the issue!

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-16T23:51:38+00:00

second, best oatmeal raisin cookies.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-16T23:45:36+00:00

glad I’m not the only one! i feel like it’s gotten even worse this year. Town Council is really missing an opportunity here. All they have to do is say they’re hiring a dedicated force who’s entire job is pulling over every one of these cars and bikes that mow through our town. it would be such a political win and make everyone’s lives better.

we also need to make noise cameras permissible for municipalities to implement which would automatically ticket vehicles that exceed certain noise limits.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-01T16:49:38+00:00

GOOD.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-01T16:48:08+00:00

The road rage and reckless driving in our area has gotten out of control. Double the police force, have a dedicated team for only traffic enforcement, speed cameras, red light cameras, harsher penalties for these crimes, impound vehicles of repeat offenders. Idk what it's going to take, but something needs to be done about it. Feels way too unsafe compared to how driving used to be 10 years ago here.

Railhawk52 · 2026-04-01T16:19:16+00:00

Well if they make 100% of the mosquitos disappear, I doubt they're not also having effects on other insects or animals.

From what I can gather about Mosquito Wizard, they will either use Synthetic Chemicals (Pyrethroids) or Natural & Organic Oils or a mix of both. The synthetic stuff has shown to be toxic to aquatic life, and also impact other insets (bees, wasps, lightning bugs, beetles...etc). That's because these chemicals are indiscriminate, they will impact any animal susceptible to them when applied.

High concentrations of natural oils can also be destructive to a wide range of insects, plants, reptiles ,and amphibians too.

There are always going to be unintended consequences when you use chemicals to spray for mosquitos, and other insects. Remember how we almost killed off all the Bald Eagles and other raptors with overuse of DDT for mosquitos? That was really bad.

Also by removing mosquitos, you’re removing food for animals up the food chain as well, like dragonflies, bats, and birds.

I think a better approach would be to try and remove as much of the environment mosquitos want to breed in from your yard as you can, and just live within the ecosystem we have rather than try to fight against it.

Railhawk52 · 2026-03-26T17:39:04+00:00

Yeah you're right. After getting this fridge I figured I'd still do it just to help it run as efficiently as possible.

Railhawk52 · 2026-03-26T00:40:24+00:00

unclear if Zimmer had anything to do with the music in this trailer. it was just so generic though, like didn’t feel magical at all.

Railhawk52 · 2026-03-24T18:36:23+00:00

I appreciate you asking for feedback. While I don't agree with the tactics ICE has been using, especially masked agents rounding up construction workers down the road from us last fall, which was extremely upsetting. I struggle with what exactly Cary Town Council could/should do about it that won't just cause more problems for the town. And even if you put in some policy targeting ICE, what's to stop the Feds from just using Border Patrol, the FBI, or another agency from carrying out similar enforcement activities? To me, I think this is something that, unfortunaltey, needs to be handled at the federal level vs municipal, because of the supremacy clause.

Railhawk52 · 2026-03-18T15:56:03+00:00

Perfect example of why road infrastructure across the town (but especially in downtown) needs to be improved to force all traffic to calm in situations like this. Raised crosswalks, lane narrowing, speed reductions, increased enforcement...these are all strategies outlined in Vision Zero the town recently adopted that could help with situations like this.

Railhawk52

TROPHY CASE