Capital Boulevard corridor could get update

"It's got to be the world's ugliest highway," Raleigh resident Helen Tart said.

But Tart also saw potential in the area.

"This doesn't have a lot on it right, and it seems like there are so many neighborhoods that there should be more there for us to see," she said.

At an earlier public workshop, Raleigh residents proposed connecting neighborhoods along Capital Boulevard, creating a greenway from Crabtree Creek to downtown and designing new interchanges for better traffic flow.

At this meeting, residents and city planners talked about cleaning up waterways and using them as the site for new development.

"We see the opportunity for mixed-use development for commercial (and) residential to come and use parts of the corridor over time where some of the land is sitting fallow and un-utilized," said Ken Bowers, deputy director of Raleigh's Department of City Planning.

All these ideas will be molded into a master plan that must be approved by the Raleigh City Council. Depending on funding, any major infrastructure changes along Capital Boulevard could still be three to five years away.

"You have to have a plan first," Bowers said. "Until you do, you have nothing to fund."

He said that Raleigh could apply for state and federal grants for projects such as replacing old bridges and improving water quality.