November 7th Raleigh City Council Meeting: Water and Roundabout

Today city council discussed the current status of our low water supply and usage as well as the Hillsborough and Morgan St. roundabout.

Here are the water facts as presented to the council:

- Falls lake is at 36% capacity
- 115 days of water left in the worst case scenario
- There has been a 37% water usage reduction
- 400 citations have been issued for non-compliance with Phase 1 restrictions. This includes counties that Raleigh sells water to.

The recent rain we have had was helpful in raising the volume of Falls Lake. The council has faith that we will continue to receive intermittent rain throughout the winter. Council members Thomas Crowder and Russ Stephenson both want to immediately begin looking at establishing year round measures for water conservation. Mayor Meeker wants to wait until Falls Lake is back up to a higher capacity and then examine conservation measures.

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Mayor Meeker decided that there should be a public meeting concerning the Hillsborough and Morgan Street roundabout in early December.  It seems that a single lane roundabout will not be considered. The single lane would fail in peak hours and thus would not be accepted by NC Department of Transportation. Council members Philip Isley and Joyce Kekas both had reservations about the roundabout plan. They both urged the council to wait until the other Hillsborough Street roundabouts are built to see how traffic responds to them. Isley echoed public suggestions that a T-intersection stop light should be considered. The public meeting will take place somewhere in the vicinity of the proposed roundabout site.