Route: |
Begins at the north end of Blount and Person Streets north of downtown.
|
Attractions: |
Goes past the Mordecai Historical Park, home of the birthplace of Andrew Johnson (moved from the rear of a hotel on Fayetteville Street) and a plantation house that at one time owned almost all the land between the Beltline and downtown. One of the older roads around. |
Major Intersections:
|
Name it. Chances are, if it's east-west, Wake Forest crosses it.OK, OK, so you want me to list them out. Eat your heart out: Capital Blvd./US 401, Six Forks Rd., I-440 (exit 10), New Hope Church Rd., Falls of Neuse Rd., Millbrook Rd., Atlantic Ave., Capital Blvd (again, but this time as US 1), Fox Rd. There, ya happy? :) |
Notes: |
Bar none, the most historic of all the roads in north Raleigh. Wake Forest began its life in a big way and has come down significantly since then. Back before there was a Capital Blvd. (heck, before there was a US 401), Wake Forest was US 1 running north out of Raleigh, which at the time ended around where today's interchange with I-440 is. I won't dwell on the specifics of US 1/1A/etc. (I have another page that deals with that), but it's worth mentioning that the section of Wake Forest between Falls of Neuse and Capital Blvd (the northern intersection) hasn't been touched since it was first built as US 1, in the late '20s, with one exception (discussed below).Wake Forest inside the Beltline was widened to four and five lanes in the early '50s, with the "end" of Wake Forest at the Capital Blvd. freeway constructed in 1953. Why is "end" in quotes? Well, one would think that a trumpet interchange is the end of the road, sort of like Wade Ave. a half-mile down Capital Blvd. However, that's not the case with Wake Forest; technically speaking, the road runs underneath the old Seaboard bridge that is on the left as you go south toward the Capital Blvd. interchange. This is now private property, but if you really want to think of Wake Forest as a continuous route, this is the way you do it. The road was widened to five lanes north of the Beltline at about the time the Beltline came through, in 1964. At this time, Falls of Neuse was also widened, and the two roads met where they do today. In other words, it's been almost 40 years since you didn't have to make a turn to stay on Wake Forest. The seven-lane gauntlet "widening" (actually a restriping) took place in 1985, and people haven't stopped whining about it since - for good reason; it's an awful road to drive, especially at rush hour. So why isn't there an intersection with Spring Forest Road? And what's with Forest Oaks Drive? The answers to these lie in the extension of Atlantic Ave. in 1988. Prior to Atlantic's arrival, Wake Forest continued to parallel the railroad tracks as it does south of the Forest Oaks intersection. Using what is today's Otters Run Court and the "stub" of Old Wake Forest coming south and dead-ending at the Pavilion shopping center southeast of the Atlantic/Wake Forest/Litchford intersection, Wake Forest was a through route that intersected Spring Forest at roughly the location of what is today a Goodberry's ice cream shop at the Pavilion. The coming of Atlantic Ave., as well as the construction of the Pavilion in 1989, doomed this section of Wake Forest to the segmented stuff that we have today. Forest Oaks became the de facto through route, and the city installed "To Old Wake Forest Road" signs that still exist today to lead drivers back to Wake Forest. Hopefully that explains why Wake Forest isn't a through route anymore...it used to be. For no real reason other than a connector to neighborhoods on the east side of Capital Blvd., Wake Forest was extended to Fox Road in 1992. Why it was built with 4 lanes is beyond me, but this section will be used quite a bit more with the coming of the Triangle Towne Center mall currently under construction. Maybe then the 4-lanes will be justified. |