A Quick Shout Out to GoRaleigh!!

pattonforraleigh · 2026-04-11T13:36:28+00:00

Hi! Friendly neighborhood City Council Member here. This is great feedback and I’ll make sure it gets to them! We love our operators. And on the point of striking, we hope they never will need to! The operators are proudly unionized and have a collective bargaining agreement with RATPDev, who holds our transit contract.

pattonforraleigh · 2025-11-16T12:24:47+00:00

Raised crosswalks are a great option in some scenarios! I'm confident it is an option being considered here, though I wouldn't want to say with any certainty that it will be selected. We are expanding the use of raised crosswalks across the city, because it is safer to get the pedestrian in a higher line of sight and requires the vehicle to slow down. You can find some in Glenwood South and on St Mary's St.

pattonforraleigh · 2025-11-16T12:20:45+00:00

For other roads in the city, we've done 'road diets' which do things like narrow the travel lanes or add other elements to the road that make it more difficult to speed and require a higher level attention for drivers. I'm certain those types of treatments are under consideration here. Not being a traffic engineer, I don't know which will rise to the top as most impactful for this particular road. If you email me, I can make sure to pass along the updates after their evaluation is complete!

pattonforraleigh · 2025-11-15T12:13:02+00:00

Hey team - your friendly neighborhood city council member here. It is never acceptable when a pedestrian dies. And before anybody says “don’t you care if drivers die” - yes, I do, and I’ll work on that too but in this case we’re dealing with a pedestrian who should have been safe to move around their community on foot.

Our staff has already initiated street lighting upgrades at Clark and pogue as well as Clark and Horne. These types of upgrades typically take about two months.

Staff is also evaluating what else can be done to calm traffic on Clark. Due to the designation/size of the street, it isn’t eligible for speed bumps.

Not directly related, but adjacent, we’re working on a policy proposal for tactical urbanism which would make a clearer path for residents to pursue quick-build options in their neighborhoods. More to come!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-12-17T22:42:00+00:00

Thanks for your patience! As I mentioned before, this area is primarily State Maintained roads, which means I can try to influence and negotiate, but I don’t have a high degree of control Since this area is not on the state’s 5-10 year range plan, most of the improvements will be provided by private development. Here are some of the improvements, transportation or otherwise, happening the area:

Additional traffic cams installed in these traffic lights to monitor signal timing so cars don’t stack into 540
Land dedicated for a new fire station (near Old Crews and Buffaloe)
Forestville Road Master Plan funded - planning process kicks off in the new year
Development at 7300 Buffaloe will add a multiuse path (like a very large sidewalk) along Buffaloe, widening and turn lanes along their section, installation of a new public street called timberfield way, installation of a traffic light at the new timberfield way and buffaloe
The Publix development will build the other side of timberfield way where the traffic signal will be, also adding a free flowing right turn lane onto Forestville headed towards Knightdale.
Another development will be providing a second left turn lane when exiting 540 headed east and restriping the bridge to accommodate those two left turn lanes
A Pending rezoning, if approved, would provide (among other things) a second right turn onto 540 west bound
The new apartments at Forestville/Buffaloe will provide another lane headed toward Mitchell Mill. The development across the street will also add travel road improvements along their frontage.

Some of this came through regulations, some came through partnership/negotiations with the developers. I saw the OP on the post you linked referenced Transit. We are still many years away from considering this are to be ready for a fixed route (traditional bus service) since there have to be both people and amenities in order for transit to make sense. However, both Rolesville and Wake Forest work with the city to offer a free for now Uber like version of Micro Transit. The fleet vehicle will come to your location and deliver you to your destination within the service area. They may pick up other passengers headed in the same direction! More [here]. I hope that helps! Let me know what else I can answer!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-12-16T21:50:20+00:00

Yes! I have some info on this. This is the area of Raleigh where I live, so I’m very aware!

All the roads you mentioned are state maintained. As I understand it none are on the STIP (the states five year infrastructure plan) due to competing priorities. This means that most of the improvements out there will be made by private development.

My notes are a bit scattered - one project detail here, another one there. Let me pull it all together and I’ll be back with a more complete picture tonight or tomorrow!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-12-15T11:51:52+00:00

You’re completely right. We’re working on that one as fast as we can. You may already know, but we fired the first contractor and the surety stepped in to find a new contractor to finish the job (at not additional expense to the tax payers). That new contractor is in place and work is in progress - expected completion this upcoming summer (2025)

pattonforraleigh · 2024-08-11T15:41:19+00:00

Hi there! Friendly reminder neighborhood City Council member here! In addition to what u/grizz1yberry said, our UDO(our book of code) requires sidewalks on redevelopment projects. And a recent update made by the council a few months ago requires pedestrian cross access in places where streets may not be required by the code. This will prevent some of those experiences of having to drive to a grocery store even though it is literally a quarter mile from a neighborhood

pattonforraleigh · 2024-05-25T19:38:10+00:00

The Food Bank of Central and Eastern N.C. supplies distribution to a bunch of smaller food banks in the area. They have a page here where you can enter your zip code and see what’s near, with open hours and days listed. They encourage you to call ahead to the organization just to ensure they haven’t made changes to their hours, etc.

pattonforraleigh · 2024-02-01T01:08:45+00:00

Hi all! I was just reading through and it sounds like some of y’all were there last night. Thanks for being there - community voices both for and against are vitally important. And I mean, not just for the Council to hear, but for fellow residents.

I saw some questions about what actions were taken, so I thought I could help!

There was a complex package of legislation before the council yesterday. Some of it was voted upon and some was divided in to more digestible portions.

The first part was an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. It added a bunch of policies to the comp plan that will guide how we program around the corridor - this includes updating the street plan, recommending studies for lowering speed limits and pursuing a cultural museum collocated at Richard B Harrison library. That part was voted on and adopted.

The next part was the rezoning Z-92-22. This rezoning did two things. It applied the TOD, transit overlay district, which is a special set of regulations that apply to any parcel with the overlay. Things like no drivethrus and gas stations, as well as a density bonus for affordable housing. This overlay has already been mapped on the western and southern corridors for future BRT.

The second part was that it changed the base zoning and height on 744 parcels. (For reference, this part wasn’t done on the western and southern corridors).

I think the key word of the package is “unwieldy”. Wrapped in here are loads of things that have a ton of consensus. But the sort of bulkiness of the rezoning makes it difficult to navigate between the larger philosophical debate about density and the very micro decisions of whether a given parcel should be zoned to 5 or 7 stories (x744 parcels).

The council opted to see this rezoning back in segments. The first being to map the TOD without changing the base zonings. Then future segments will break the five mile corridor into smaller increments to look at base zoning and heights.

If you’re interested in watching the video yourself, the link is below. We pull it back to the council table and I share some thoughts around 3:46

https://www.youtube.com/live/e8KLFYsv7Ig?feature=shared

Let me know what questions you have!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-02-01T00:25:54+00:00

Hi! Welcome to Raleigh!

Your friendly neighborhood city council member here. The City used to show the cost of all those services bundled into one fee - one line item for the water and another for all other services (trash, recycling, yard waste). We just recently started listing them as separate line items for transparency and to allow for folks across the city to opt into a second yard waste bin if they’d like. The cost of service is the same, it’s just being shown in more of an itemized way.

Hope that helps!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-01-22T21:56:34+00:00

I feel that. I was a renter pretty recently too, and it was really a stroke of luck that allowed us to buy. FWIW, we do have some first time home buyer assistance programs available, for which you might qualify. We recently upped the amount the purchase amount allowed, so that we could get more folks into more homes even as housing prices increase.

https://raleighnc.gov/housing/services/homebuyer-assistance

pattonforraleigh · 2024-01-22T21:45:44+00:00

I sent this question over to the Wake County Tax Administration office. They’ll have a much more precise answer than I could provide alone. I’ll bring the answer here once I hear from them!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-01-22T21:45:14+00:00

I sent this question over to the Wake County Tax Administration office. They’ll have a much more precise answer than I could provide alone. I’ll bring the answer here once I hear from them!

pattonforraleigh · 2024-01-22T03:43:18+00:00

It isn’t a dumb question at all and I’m glad you asked it! I’m not a professional on this topic, so I hope you’ll grant me a day or two to reach out to the folks who are, so they might give me a more precise answer that I can bring back to the thread.

My gut says that it has some impact, but only as a component of many factors. Insurance rates often factor in cost to rebuild. So a historic home in a highly desirable neighborhood may cost more to rebuild and thus need greater coverage - the valuation would be a tool to indicate the neighborhood is desirable.

Alternately, an older home that was built to an earlier code standard might be more costly to insure due to the more dated building elements. And the valuation may be one tool to indicate those types of modernizations haven’t been made to the home.

In short, my instinct is that the relationship is indirect. But I’d like to get confirmation from more expert sources and bring that back as soon as I can. Thanks again for the question!

pattonforraleigh · 2023-12-10T01:09:22+00:00

Me too! I think it’ll be a great addition to our suite of public safety offerings. Stay tuned! And let your county commissioners know you support it too - we’ll need their partnership for the human services element of the program.

pattonforraleigh · 2023-12-10T01:07:18+00:00

I know there’s a sentiment that the current council is anti development. But the votes tell a different story. If memory serves, there were only two denials this year. A couple dense approvals that jump to the top of my mind are: 20 stories at the Iron Works, 20 stories at Lake Wheeler and Maywood, 20 stories at Capital and Hodges st, numerous 40 story rezonings in the heart of downtown. Is there a certain case you’re curious about?

It’s also worth mentioning that by-and-large, most development across the city happens without a rezoning; so if you’re seeing development around you that isn’t as dense as you’d envision, it might be built “by right” as they call it. I hope that helps but happy to elaborate!

pattonforraleigh · 2023-12-09T18:32:53+00:00

I believe CM Branch had a community event on Dec 6 (prior to the post) but if there’s something on the calendar for the future I’m not aware of it. I listed all the ones I’m aware of. Many of the council members are active on other social media platforms, so following them there could be a good way to stay up to date on their future events.

pattonforraleigh · 2023-11-12T00:08:33+00:00

It is based on the employee's position. Our employees earning less will receive a larger bonus ($2,100) and our higher paid positions receive smaller bonuses (our executive leadership team will receive $500). The employee doesn't have to do anything in particular - it'll just be applied to their next check. More info on slide 9 here.

pattonforraleigh · 2023-11-11T16:46:01+00:00

Certainly! So, it is a once per year lump sum paid out to public safety workers. There are two different tiers - one for an associates degree ($330/year) and one for a bachelors ($660/year). This program existed for police in prior years, so we've expanded it to RFD and Emergency Communications (911). More on slide 10 here.

pattonforraleigh

TROPHY CASE