I think Raleigh officials botched the parking layout of Fayetteville Street. The city should’ve made its parking spaces angled. There’s all this wide, unused sidewalk, another four or five feet of which could’ve added a huge number of parking spaces to this area of downtown. The sidewalk wouldn’t have even missed it.
While I’m a pretty big tree-hugger and no fan of the concrete behemoth that used to be the “pedestrian mall,” inadequate street parking limits the growth of downtown business. If one wants a vibrant city core, good parking is a must. There’s enough room on F-street for plenty of parking and sidewalks. What we have now is the result of a botched decision.