Thank you so much for all of the feedback we’ve gotten on our Raleigh Streets series. It has been great to see the City of Raleigh create some excellent arteries that make the city flow well. However the map is unnecessarily complicated. There are a few more that we failed to address in the series.
St. Mary’s Street/Lassiter Mill Road map it #1, #2
One of Raleigh’s longest streets is also one of its most beautiful. St. Mary’s Street begins just south of Hillsborough Street and heads north, defining the western edge of downtown. Along this stretch one sees the old carriage house, St. Mary’s School, Wiley Elementary, Broughton High School, the former Methodist Orphanage, and the former Rex Hospital (at Wade Ave.). Northward, St. Mary’s passes through the Hayes Barton neighborhood and by some of Raleigh’s most charming houses. The section between Fairview and Glenwood is lined by majestic, but cozy, trees creating Raleigh’s most picturesque block. Glenwood Ave, however, is where the trouble starts.
The Glenwood/St Mary’s/Anderson Drive intersection has rightfully been termed “Confusion Corner”. If one intends to stay on northbound St. Mary’s, they must turn left onto Glenwood Ave and then turn a soft right at the next intersection (a hard right puts drivers on Anderson Dr.). St. Mary’s proceeds several blocks north until it reaches the intersection where White Oak Road and Scotland Dr. secretly join. From that point onward, the street is called “Lassiter Mill Road”. There is no announcement of the two road name changes at this otherwise simple intersection. Lassiter Mill Road continues to one block beyond Six Forks Road,
Why is it right for Raleigh have a two-named road connecting (and bordering) downtown to Six Forks Rd? It should not be a secret to Six Forks Rd. drivers that Lassiter Mill connects to Glenwood Ave. and downtown. The other crazy facet to this road is that it goes through a break (at Glenwood) where a name change would be natural. If there is going to be a name change, why not change it at the Glenwood discontinuity?
Raleigh should simplify the street by renaming Old Lassiter Mill Rd to “Lassiter Mill Rd.” and rename the current Lassiter Mill Rd. to “St. Mary’s Street.” A second option is to rename the St. Mary’s section north of Glenwood to “Lassiter Mill Rd.” Either way, drivers on major arteries would recognize this secondary artery and save time and gas with a smarter route.
Since Cornelius Jessee Lassiter, the founder of Lassiter’s Mill was the one who owned most of the land in what is now North Hills, and was the one who made the original road that now called Lassiter’s Mill Road, as well as the road called Old Lassiter’s Mill Road, it would be historically wrong to rename all the street from Glenwood to North Hills St. Marys St. St. Mary’s street always ended where the Lassiter homestead at the corner of White Oak Road and St. Mary’s was situated. To rename the extention from there to North Hills would be to lose a significant part of Raleigh History (Not to mention that “The Lassiter” and Lassiter Summit would no longer be on Lassiter Mill Road. There was a trolley running from downtown to Bloomsbury Park which was situated at the Lassiter Mill area. North of there in most of what is now called North Hills was Lassiter Land utilized in crop planting. (For Example Ramblewood Drive was cotton crops). It would make more sense to call the part on one side of glenwood Avenue St. Mary’s Street (as it goes by St. Mary’s college) and the part on the otherside from Glenwood North Lassiter’s Mill Road.
Sincerely,
Peggy Lassiter Pedersen