Hillsborough Street is a main artery into downtown Raleigh. It also goes past the North Carolina State campus. For years on campus the talk has been of finding something to do about the traffic on Hillsborough Street, but it has all boiled down essentially to wishing the problem away and envisioning a utopian “walking community” where those nuisance cars are a thing of the past. Hardly a practical solution for a campus community of over 30,000 students (let alone faculty, staff, visitors, etc.).

But leadership in Raleigh has also found it more pleasant to avoid addressing the problem and instead sigh wistfully about that rarefied Walking Community (which, incidentally, can be found in any number of impoverished, hand-to-mouth Third World backwaters, along with dysentery and UN corruption). So what’s Raleigh’s Big Idea of dealing with traffic congestion on Hillsborough Street? Make it even more congested!

WRAL reports:

Raleigh City Council members gathered on Hillsborough Street to see how proposed roundabouts would look on a two-mile stretch from Gorman to Pullen roads.

City planners marked off the area to show what would be affected.

The city wants to slow traffic, improve parking and revitalize the street. One plan calls for part of the road to go from four lanes to two lanes with eight roundabouts that would help slow traffic. It would also include 80 additional parking spaces. …

My fear is we only do one roundabout and the city and street are forever impacted if we don’t do the three to five to nine – or the ultimate plan was to do 11,” said council member Philip Isley.

P.S. Here’s a brief look at “traffic calming” around the world.