As part of our periodic updates to inform you of how the Triangle continues to move onward and upward, we now present these recent developments indicating how the region keeps progressing. We think these activities are enough proof of why the Triangle should be your first choice for relocating yourself and your family. To learn why, read on.
Raleigh Bus System Becoming Bigger, Receives Federal Money
Raleigh has won a $2.8 million federal grant that will help buy land for a planned Capital Area Transit (CAT) bus maintenance and operations center on Poole Road. CAT has outgrown its 30-year-old maintenance garage on Blount Street, which was designed to handle 50 buses. Now, with about 90 buses carrying more riders every month, the city transit agency is planning a new $20 million facility that can handle 150 to 250 buses.
The federal grant will cover about 80 percent of the purchase price for the planned 23-acre site. Raleigh will seek more federal money to help build the CAT maintenance and operations center. CAT buses carried 450,000 passengers in August, the agency’s busiest month on record. This clearly indicates this increasing importance of public transportation in the Triangle, and we applaud CAT for the expansion.
$1.5 Million Grant For Video Game to Boost High School Students’ Science Skills
N.C. State University is partnering with Research Triangle-based Virtual Heroes to develop a video game they believe will boost science and information technology skills among North Carolina high school students. Virtual Heroes is an emerging leader in “serious games,” or video games that not only entertain but train, and it also utilizes virtual reality to assist medical students in learning through 3D simulation. Funded by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the collaborators are developing a videogame program called “Games Requiring Advanced Developmental Understanding and Achievement in Technological Endeavors,” or GRADUATE for short. (Clever, eh?)
NC State and Virtual Heroes will focus initially on 40 teachers and some 150 students in the 2011 class at two high schools – Lee Early College in Sanford and Hillside New Tech in Durham. Both schools are focused on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM (clever again!) efforts in “disadvantaged” rural and urban students. Researchers at North Carolina State are harnessing the growing potential of video game software to foster science achievement and IT skills of North Carolina high school students while helping them fulfill a newly implemented graduation project requirement.
Noodles and Company Comes to Chapel Hill
Noodles & Company, a quick-casual, globally inspired noodle restaurant that serves a balanced menu of freshly sautéed Asian, Mediterranean and American cuisine, will open its first Chapel Hill restaurant and 3rd location in North Carolina on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 11 a.m. The restaurant is located at 214 W. Franklin St. Colorado-based Noodles & Company was founded in 1995 and is the world's first, quick-casual, globally inspired noodle restaurant. Noodles & Company is continuing to expand in North Carolina with plans to open in Raleigh and a second location in Charlotte. For more info about it, visit here.
Just as we have said in the past, this is only a sampling of the improvements coming to the area. To discover more, keep checking back here in the future.
The upgrade in the Raleigh bus system could not come at a better time. With oil and gas prices rising many residents will seek alternate means of transportation.
Posted by: Bobby McDonald | October 01, 2008 at 08:56 AM