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Welcome to the weekend, readers.

Durham’s Transportation Department and the North Carolina Department of Transportation have a complicated relationship. NC DOT owns and manages many of the major streets throughout Durham. But as the community continues to petition city staff to reimagine its transportation network, the city’s transportation department will have to build a bridge with its state-level counterpart to facilitate the development of any new road projects.

Lately, the two departments have hit a few bumps in the road.

NC DOT has no guidelines for city road redesign. The department takes each proposal on a case-by-case basis. The lack of pre-existing parameters makes it challenging for cities like Durham to be consistent in their proposals and for NC DOT to offer clear direction.

“It’s the first time it’s ever been done,” says Kimberly Deaner, Division 5 communications officer at NC DOT, about the two-way conversion. “So [NC DOT], our division engineers, our traffic safety engineers, want to make sure without a shadow of a doubt that this is an idea that can be done safely.”

But this isn’t the first time main thoroughfares in Durham have been converted. Main Street and Chapel Hill Street through downtown were converted from two-way to one-way and then back to two-way (and yet, traffic in Five Points is still like the Bermuda Triangle). Still, NC DOT says it is not willing to rush the project in lieu of safety.

Advocates are worried that waiting too long for NC DOT could delay the Roxboro and Mangum project indefinitely.

Read more about the situation here.

—Justin

Durham

The Duke Graduate Students Union is continuing to pressure the university’s administration to pay a living wage.

Wake

Raleigh council members formally approved a measure to change the name of the Cameron Park neighborhood to Forest Park. [Paywalled]

Orange

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, UNC’s incoming class of students is less diverse.

North Carolina

RFK Jr. will remain on North Carolina voters’ ballots, a judge ruled. The state will send out its first batch of absentee ballots to voters today.

Today’s weather

Sunny with a high of 83 degrees.

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