One thing I noticed yesterday is when my light turned green to go straight, some cars turning left (opposite me) began to approach me and encroach on my path through the intersection. There are no guide lines or anything to warn those left turners that they might be in my path across the intersection, since it's not perfectly straight.

I was not clear on my original complaint. I did not mean to imply that no left turns should be allowed, period. THAT would be a serious undertaking. I was hoping for, like you said, a protected left turn cycle. Since there is already a left turn only lane there, I don't know why this hadn't already been done.

I've referred this to our Public Works Department. When the staff has had a chance to respond I’ll post an update. Thanks for reporting.

Both approaches of Glenwood have working protected left turns. The left turns are on a 15 second delay which means once you approach the light the controller will not receive the call until 15 seconds have expired. This means if the arrow is not received on that cycle, it will work on the next cycle. However, if vehicles cross the stop bar (solid white bar across the lane where the detection loops for that movement are located behind that bar) the vehicle will never receive the left turn arrow because they are off the detection loop. A City of Raleigh traffic signal technician checked the detection and functioning of the intersection and all was working properly at this time. The technician did notice that a majority of left turning vehicles crossed the stop bar and did not receive the arrow. Staff pulled all the crash reports for the past 12 months and found some crashes at this location but only one crash involving the lefts turns off Glenwood. Staff will continue to monitor and make any necessary changes.

Thanks for the update, but I feel rather strongly that the "stop bar" on Whitaker Mill should be a bit farther out into the intersection. I realize there are problems here with the geometry of various turns, but it truly is not working very well as it is--especially recently, I believe because many drivers coming from Whitaker Mill are new to the area and don't know the (one-time, at least) neighborhood custom of waiting for drivers coming from Fairview to make their choice between Glenwood and Whit.Mill. There's no reason they SHOULD be aware of this custom--which is all the more reason why we need better controls at Five Points. I can't imagine why the city hasn't seriously thought about putting in a roundabout here. No intersection in Raleigh needs one more.

Thanks Raleigh for giving this a decent amount of attention and for doing the research. My main concern is that when each way has a non-protected green light for left turners, people pull out and mis-calculate how much into the opposite lane they are approaching. I have had to swerve countless times to avoid hitting people who have inadvertently come into the opposite lane to sit and wait to turn left.

As a long time resident of Raleigh and former resident of Five Points I believe this is a non- issue. And you believe people who use this intersection are new to the area? That's truly laughable. People need to learn how to drive. Perhaps a roundabout would help but that costs major money. Rally your state represenative, NCDOT maintains this road if I am not mistaken.

Seems to be some great conversation about this. The lights are set to standards that are approved by City Council.

I don't get the debate, all it requires is a 5-second left turn light arrow from Whitaker Mill left to Glenwood, then yellow arrow so that all know you do not have the right of way. Someone could make a living in a truck and have mini-accidents coming from Fairview and keeping the 2k they would get for the dent since it was the other person;s fault, truly a mystery why this isn't fixed. The magnet school is a much larger issue, since this is a great example of there being no public way to get around, or the school should at least have a shuttle to a pick up place where cars can go in and out in different directions, a writer on the South would have fun with this....

I see two parts to the problem with this intersection. I drive through there a lot, so this is just anecdotal from my experience. The parking on Glenwood either side that forces traffic into one lane that creates a bottleneck and encourages speeding and cutting in around the 2-hour windows around rush hour. I am a patient driver and stick to the posted speed but I am constantly at odds with people speeding and getting upset that I am not going fast enough. The location is quite space-limited and the intersection is not a standard 4-way intersection. I frequently have to avoid left turners as I drive from north-to-south and south-to-north on Glenwood because it seems difficult for drivers to estimate where I am going, what lane I am in, or how far they have to come over to sit and wait before they can turn. A simple dotted line through the intersection to mark lanes would probably suffice. At least some sort of indicator, like they have on multi-lane left turns across the city.

A big issue is that headed away from downtown on Glenwood, once you get far enough into the intersection to make the left turn, the signal is no longer visible, so you don't know if it's still green or not. Move the signal to where it will be visible to those who need it. This may be a place where signals on poles could be more effectively placed than signals on wires.

This intersection needs some better signage or a roundabout or something. Travelling from Fairview across to Whitaker Mill I have almost been hit by cars turning from Fairview to Glenwood many times and apparently it is not clear to people they need to yield here.
What do you do when you want to go across from Whitaker Mill to Glenn? I would think one would need to do this from the left lane on Fairview but I saw someone in the right lane cross to Glenn today and it appeared to be unsafe. This is probably the most messed up intersection in Raleigh in my opinion and why the city wont do anything about it is beyond me.

The upcoming *** 2 YEAR *** closure of the Capital + Peace bridge is going to add more pressure to the intersection and needs to be addressed proactively. See http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2015/10/08/downtown-bridge-projects-may-spur-development.html

We have heard two answers why this can't be addressed:

1. It is a DOT intersection
2. It is a city council issue

There have been multiple complaints about this for years:

https://seeclickfix.com/issues/1621593
http://seeclickfix.com/issues/997712
http://seeclickfix.com/issues/928794

Attached is a pic with traffic backing up into the previous intersection (Sunset & Whitaker). Please get it fixed. Starting with a simple left turn arrow for Whitaker Mill. Seriously, WTF? It's not that hard guys...

Just for fun I made up some rush hour volumes based on the average daily traffic and ran the intersection in Synchro 9 (traffic engineering software). Intersections are graded from A to F with D being an ideal operational grade that provides an adequate level of service. Left as is, the intersection performed at a D level, with the left turn arrow for Whitaker Mill, the operation of the intersection dropped to a F (failing). It does back up on Whitaker Mill as is but it is just for peak hours so the city is probably content to leave it as is rather than add that left turn arrow and make the intersection worse than it already is for traffic on Glenwood since the volumes on Glenwood Ave are much higher. In actuality, from my simple model that I created, the left turn arrow did not solve the back up issues on Whitaker Mill Road. The addition of the left turn arrow made the signal cycle length longer which meant by the time it got back around to the Whitaker Mill Road approach, it was just as long of a line as without the left turn arrow.

I can see how the addition of the left arrow would add to the cycle length, but anyone who goes through the intersection knows that as the light turns red up to three cars try to rush through once the light is red and before the Glenwood traffic starts up, so that is where the backup is avoided. I still think 5 seconds would get those three cars across, and by blinking yellow would get everyone on the same page as who has the right of way. Modeling is good, but a trial period in the real world would clarify things. The other issue is that if you talk with the folks who work in the businesses at the intersection, they see many almost accidents every day, so at least the yellow would help drivers feel they understand the rules. (Nobody reads the yield sign.)

Pierre, great work trying out real data! Where did the data come from? There might be some data missing from your assumptions. Having lived at the intersection for 12 years, there are things you can't help but notice sitting through multiple light cycles.

First, cars coming from Whitaker Mill, the traffic forks, however the right turn lane is way too short. This means right turn traffic, is blocked by the left turn traffic which must yield to the on coming traffic. This blocked up right turn traffic, which has the right of way is backing up left turn traffic behind it. And that is how things get backed up past Sunset every morning and evening.

Second, there is a lot of hesitation by drivers from Fairview and Glenwood because the oncoming traffic is at an obtuse angle. This slows things down greatly in the intersection because even vehicles with the right of way pause unsure if the other guy is really going to yield.

I do not think the light cycle length needs to be changed, as much as clear right of ways given. Similar to the left turn from Glenwood onto Glen Eden, just a mile or two away.

The numbers I use were just guesstimates so definitely not real data! (But was just curious what could be done to fix the intersection from a signal standpoint since I drive through the intersection every day) I took the average daily traffic numbers from the Glenwood Ave and Whitaker Mill Road approaches, plugged them into a spreadsheet NCDOT uses to estimate traffic volumes at intersections during AM and PM rush hour periods. They're definitely not accurate and you would need to get someone to actually count the cars during those periods to get accurate numbers as I could be way off. But since I didn't have any real data and it's not a project of mine, that's all I had to go on.

I agree that the right turn lane needs to be extended. There are times when I want to go straight on Fairview or right on Glenwood but cannot because the right turn lane isn't long enough. Once you get accurate traffic counts, you can plug it into a model and figure out how long the turn lane needs to be. From my guess, I got 275 feet, it's currently 125 feet.

On my way home today, I almost got hit by a driver turning left from Glenwood to Fairview who didn't realize the light had turned red (I was going straight from Fairview to Whittaker Mill). I think the city plans to relocate the lights to a more visible position so that will definitely help to avoid trapping.

I did talk to someone at the city and NCDOT recently and they mentioned how there wasn't much of a accident history out there surprisingly. There are definitely lots of near accidents but there doesn't appear to be a whole bunch of actual accidents. If I have some down time at work, I can see if I can run a crash analysis of the intersection for the last few years.

Lastly, I think that while Whitaker Mill Road definitely warrants a protected left turn lane, the city doesn't want to put it in because in addition to it causing the intersection to fail traffic-wise, there are also other alternative routes to turning left onto Glenwood. If you live south of Whitaker Mill, you can turn left onto Glenwood at Harvey. If you live north of Whittaker Mill, you can go up to Anderson and access Glenwood from the St. Mary's/Anderson intersection. So it's not like the Whitaker Mill approach is the only way for people to get where they are going and the traffic can be distributed to the other side streets.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seeclickfix-radio/id1082491222?mt=2
I'm not sure where the link immediately above came from. What I want to say is, WHY does the city never consider putting a roundabout at the Five Points intersection? Or HAS it been considered and put aside as not workable--and if that's the case, I'd like to know why not? I negotiate all three roundabouts in the NCSU Belltower neighborhood with ease and safety--also the one at Hillsborough and Morgan--and I feel they're miles better than what was there before.

I think historically at some point, there was a roundabout at the intersection. The roundabouts on Hillsborough Street were installed as part of a project to make the Hillsborough Street corridor safer for pedestrians and bicycles by slowing traffic down. That's not what Glenwood Avenue needs as a major traffic corridor for the city. The traffic volumes are also higher on Glenwood Avenue (23,000+ vehicles per day vs 15,000 on Hillsborough St). A single lane roundabout can only accommodate 25,000 vehicles per day so you would be looking at a multi-lane roundabout at the Five Points intersection for future volumes and that's just not feasible with all the stores that is currently out there without some impact. Just a guess as to why the city isn't considering that.

New issue--and possibly a nitpick, but I want to know whether the city's aware of the regular emissions of smoke from Mami Nora's restaurant at Wake Forest Road and McNeill Street. I don't think any other businesses in the area are allowed to spew smoke into the air on a regular basis, and I'd like to know why this one is.

eatberry, you'd probably want to start a new topic for that issue rather than commenting on this thread.

I remember the construction of the roundabouts on Hillsborough, and that traffic was terrible during construction. Moreover, once they were done, the very first time I used it, I realized the design was wrong (I used to drive and bicycle in England, where roundabouts are the norm.) After a few months they realized this as well and re built them, so all the analysis in the world must then have a trial period. Roundabouts will work if everyone is on the same page as to traffic etiquette, and that will not happen here. Back to my thread, just going through the intersection this morning a delivery truck cut across to get onto Glenwood and only missed a major accident by about three feet. Since common sense can't seem to prevail, perhaps a video camera mounted on a poll and then analysis of that, only luck has prevented a bad accident and being pro-active might actually work.

See attached table from FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) roundabout website (http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/innovative/roundabouts/fhwasa10006/)

The volumes from the Glenwood Avenue and Whitaker Mill/Fairview approaches exceed 25,000 vehicles per day - it would almost certainly require a multi-lane roundabout for it to operate correctly. The current width of the intersection is about 130-175 feet (depending which way you measure it) and a multi-lane roundabout has a diameter of 150-300 feet so businesses would be affected whether it's the pharmacy, gas station, church etc.... A roundabout is certainly not desirable there and there is no point in the city spending millions to put one in if it is not going to work (and also make people unhappy). The volumes at the NC State bell tower are much lower which is why a single lane roundabout would work (they initially had a multi lane roundabout I believe but they took it out because people were confused).

The city originally had a multi-lane round about at the bell tower, but had to reduce it because of very accident numbers. See http://raleighpublicrecord.org/news/2011/09/12/accident-numbers-at-hillsborough-roundabout-higher-than-expected/ and http://www.wral.com/traffic/story/11369528/

Pierre, how does the city think a turn arrow will "cause the intersection to fail traffic-wise" ?

Have you looked at accident data between Sunset and Glenwood. I believe I have seen at least 3 fender benders there this year. The backed up traffic is dangerous, and there is heavy pedestrian traffic.

Sure, one can get to S Glenwood via winding through the Roanoke Park neighborhood... So their answer is to point traffic down scales, past the loading zone for Underwood Elementary? That seems wrong headed and leads to worse problems and more severe accidents.

This crux of the issue is two things. The traffic coming South on Fairview has the right of way and
1. Is at a 120 angle from the opposing traffic on Whitaker Mill
2. Right of way traffic can make * 5 * possible turns

This is why this intersection is so challenging for drivers. It is a nerve racking experience driving across that intersection whether on Whitaker Mill or on Fairview. A clear right of way needs to be stated for drivers in all directions.

Someone from the city needs to visit this during rush hour (before 9, after 5), particularly during school (last day of classes is today). I have said this before... when a fatal accident occurs at this intersection, there will be a very expensive lawsuit, and these threads are evidence enough citizens are notifying the city which refuses to act on addressing a dangerous intersection. Why must people suffer (be involved in accidents) before the state + city government will act on this?

"City of Raleigh 3 (Verified Official)
Per Public Works, this issue has been discussed numerous times and is now on NCDOT’s list to be rebuilt with a protected left turn. There is no date set as of yet. Staff will continue to monitor and make any necessary changes.
2014-05-29"

I just saw this comment two years ago on this thread https://seeclickfix.com/issues/997712 Can another "Verified Official" comment on this and why it was going to happen, and now we are told above it is not?

Disclaimer - I don't work for the city or any city projects, just based on my limited knowledge about traffic operations......

There are a couple key factors in traffic engineering - one of them is level of service (LOS) and delay (how much time the average car has to wait at an intersection, main streets and side streets included). Level of service is a graded A -> F (A = very good, F = failing - kind of like a report card) based on the average intersection delay. For my analysis with the volumes that I estimated, without the protected left turn - the intersection performed at LOS D with a 53.7 second average delay which is acceptable. With the protected left turn, the intersection performed at LOS F with a 85.6 second average delay which is unacceptable. Wish I had some actual real numbers so I could tell you how it actually would turn out rather than hypotheticals.

Here's the response that I got from someone at Public Works a few weeks ago when I asked:

"Thanks for your inquiry. As it currently stands, NCDOT's Division 5 office is working with the City to replace the current wooden pole span arrangement at the five points intersection with metal poles with mast arms. The one wooden pole adjacent to the Hayes Barton Church continually gets hit (again last week). Rebuilding this intersection has become a maintenance burden on the City. As part of the rebuild, the City and NCDOT are looking at the phasing. This intersection has operated with both Whitaker Mill Road and Fairview running concurrently for many decades. It feels a little awkward however there is no crash pattern and the conflicting volume compared to the number of vehicles turning left does not satisfy the Federal warrants for a protected left turn phase. The delay on the side streets might seem excessive however the vast majority of the traffic that passes through the intersection uses Glenwood Avenue. An additional phase might benefit the side streets however it would come at the detriment of the majority that use Glenwood. All that said, we are looking into some unique phasing arrangements to assist with the side streets. We have and will be using micro-simulation software to model this so we can measure the impact of an additional phase. At the moment , we are still looking at it. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions or concerns."

and from NCDOT

"While the volumes on the westbound approach of Whitaker Mill Road may be fairly high, there are other alternate routes that through residential streets that many locals utilize to access southbound Glenwood. Adding green time to Whitaker Mill for a protected movements adversely affects Glenwood which is our biggest concern for mobility in this area. Some delay is expected on the side streets."

I'll see if I can look up the accident history sometime in the next few weeks when I have time. It's unfortunate but most of the time, nothing will be done unless there is a significant accident history - priority wise there are probably a bunch of intersections with worse crash histories than the Five Points intersection.

Doing a quick search at lunch (usually these crash reports are refined and rechecked to make sure each accident is reported correctly, sometimes police officers give incorrect location information - I didn't check to that detail), I found that there were at least 99 crashes within 150 feet of the intersection in the last 5 years. Only 9 of those crashes involved injuries (0 fatals, 0 disabling injuries, 1 evident injury, 8 possible injury). The severity rate of the accidents is 1.67 which is way below the 8.4 rating NCDOT says is the threshold for locations with serious and severe crashes. 25% of the crashes were sideswipes, 18% were rear ends, 13% were angle crashes and 12% were "run off road" accidents.

Let's put it like this:

This is a 6-way intersection ( * 3 * roads ), however the light pattern is only for 4-way intersection ( * 2 * roads). It's no wonder people are confused, and feel it is dangerous.

There NO light for Glenn Ave, and yet it is not one way, so it is legal to drive into the intersection (straight, right, or hard right) without ever having a light cycle, across this intersection whenever you want to:

https://goo.gl/maps/wJAPJbJ8F2p

This is insane. I can't imagine this follows proper guidelines. It's like they "went cheap" pretending Fairview and Whitaker were opposing traffic lanes, and ignored everything else.

Oh I agree with you, changes definitely should be made at that intersection - access to Glenn should definitely be cut off from the intersection for example.

The roundabout at Hillsborough and Pullen Road, by the Bell Tower, still has two lanes; they did re-mark them to make clearer which lane you should pull into. You may be right about the tight space for a roundabout at Five Points, but if they had one there c. 1920 for streetcars, it seems to me there should be room for one now (though possibly requiring the church to trim back its entry plaza a bit).

Jed Niffenegger with the City of Raleigh traffic engineering department gave us an update about the intersection at the Five Points CAC meeting last night. Over the next few weeks I think they will be installing new metal mast arms at the intersection to try and avoid them from having to repair the intersection every time someone hits the current wooden poles (leading to some overnight closures of the intersection with detours to install the poles/mast arms) - timeline will depend when the contractor is able to, they got caught up in repairing the water main break on Six Forks Road. In terms of the Whitaker Mill Road approach, Jed mentioned that he and his staff did some microsimulation to find a signal phasing/timing approach that would allow protected lefts but wouldn't add major delays to the 80% of traffic going thru on Glenwood Ave. Since the intersection is NCDOT's (but maintained by the city), they presented their solution to NCDOT but NCDOT rejected it since the left turn volumes did not meet federal warrants for a protected left turn signal.However, Jed did propose pursuing a project that would extended the existing thru/right lane back to Scales Street (where the 2 parking spots for the church are) which would allow more cars to go straight/right and reduce the queuing on Whitaker Mill Road during peak hours. A lot of times when the traffic is backed up, you are stuck behind the cars turning left since the thru/right lane is so small so the extra lane space will allow more cars to access the extra lane. In addition, a flashing yellow arrow will be installed with the signal pole improvements for the left turn movement at Whitaker Mill as a safety improvement to show that cars must yield to the traffic coming straight on Fairview.

With the traffic backing up all day the last few days, the line "the left turn volumes did not meet federal warrants for a a protected left turn signal." goes around the main point, just five seconds would get enough cars out of the way so that those going straight would be able to get over. The flashing yellow does help, but I still see many near accidents. How about just try it for a day and see what happens? Even have a police officer monitor what happens. To extend the right lane back would be expensive and during construction would make it much worse. I used to work with engineers but sometimes it did make sense to just run it up the flagpole and see.

I may be in the minority here but after 47 years driving though this intersection, removing the left turn option would be untenable for many reasons, including GoRaleigh bus service. People will have to obey the rules, but I think a longer left turn signal would cure many of the ills discussed.

Five Points is a unique situation to Raleigh, with the area of commercial and residential as well as Underwood Elementary adding to the mix. The land values of the neighborhood pretty much guarantee that the area will remain desirable.

We all have to adjust to growth, however I simply do not see ending left turns as a viable resolution.