Traffic flash! As of midday Wednesday, April 27, there were significant traffic delays on Rogers Road near the Marshall Farm Street intersection. The road was reduced to one lane with alternating traffic by the state Department of Transportation because crews were working to energize the new traffic signal.
The word is that the next signal in town will be the one at the South Franklin Street intersection with the N.C. 98 Bypass (Dr. Calvin Jones Highway). For those people who do not like to turn left from Franklin Street onto the highway (count the editor among them), there is an alternative which is to drive east on Wait to Traditions Grande Boulevard, turn right and turn right or left onto the highway and go to your destination. Meanwhile we can just hope that the contractor DOT has hired for the traffic signal installations will get cracking at that intersection very soon.
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The coming weekend, Friday through Sunday, April 29 to May 1, is the second weekend for the annual Wake Forest Herbfest with its certified organic, non-GMO, heritage or heirloom varieties of herbs, vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, and perennial flowers that are specific to this area. You can find it at 525 South White Street – look for the long line of parked cars and people with wagons and carts.
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More smoke and ash can be expected around South Main Street Thursday and Friday, April 28 and 29, as the Wake Forest Fire Department conducts controlled burn exercises at two houses on Mangum Avenue which is a short block east of South Main.
The houses, at 1612 and 1608 Mangum, are being razed along with three houses that faced South Main as the block is being developed into a Wendy’s and another commercial building. The new Valvoline oil change garage is next door.
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Gazette readers often know more than the editor, so she hopes a reader can answer the question posed by another reader: “Do you know what’s being built off of Woodland Church Road near Genesis?” That is in Wake County, it is assumed, and the Gazette generally covers only Wake Forest.
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The new Northeast Regional Library has just opened on Green Elm Lane between Forest Pines Drive and Common Oaks Drive in Wakefield and it is beautiful. Make sure you visit it.
That opening led the Gazette to ask Wake County Library System Director Michael J. Wasilick if and when the Wake Forest Library will be expanded, and he responded by saying it will be in fiscal 2018. A year ago he spoke to the Friends of Wake Forest Library at its annual meeting and said planning will begin in January 2017 and the library will reopen in the spring of 2018. The library was built in 1996 with 5,000 square feet and is now much too small for all the demands. It has consistently recorded the highest book circulation in the Wake County library system.
Wasilik said the library will be expanded to 8,000 square feet, now the standard for community libraries, and they hope to avoid closing it for the construction. The system may move the library into a temporary facility or keep it open and add the additional space to the on the east end, closing briefly to consolidate the two parts.
The county will build a new Middle Creek library next before the work in Wake Forest. There is a lot of demand from Rolesville and from the Brier Creek area for libraries there.
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If you have been wondering about the Sunflower Studio, asking where the artists will go now that Linda Burrell is closing the artists’ gallery, you can find out at the recently updated www.SunflowerStudioWF.com. The site includes information about Burrell and each of the artists with a lot of lovely photos. We wish all of them well.
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Midday Music in Miller is such a cool idea: you lunch and listen to local musicians while sitting in or strolling through the small park just behind Wake Forest Town Hall and across from Wake Forest Fire Department’s Station #1. Midday Music in Miller begins Thursday, May 5, from noon to 1 p.m. and will continue every Thursday through the spring. It is sponsored by Wake Forest ARTS and the Wake Forest Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Department.
One Response
What’s the point of a ‘by pass’ if it is filled with stoplights – just don’t turn left off of Franklin, use intersection on S. Main which already has lights.