Feb

NCSU and UNC 2008 Football Schedules for Your PDA

NCSU and UNC fans who like electronic calendars rejoice! I’ve uploaded the 2008 football schedules for State and Carolina in .CSV format.

Outlook/Palm Users:

Create a new folder in your in Outlook calendar (Fball08, for example). Use the File | Import and Export… to import from “another program or file”, then “Comma Separated File (Windows)”. This will set up the Heels’ schedule in your new sub-calendar where you can make whatever changes you want.
When you are happy with the way the subcalendar looks, change the calendar view to “Events” (instead of 7-day or 31-Day or whatever view you’re using). “Select All” from the list, and drag them over to your main “Calendar” (The Treo and other Palm Handhelds only sync to the main calendar – time for Palm to get with the program on that one!). If you want to keep your sub calendar intact, use Ctrl-drag instead of plain drag. That will create a copy of each event to the main Calendar and keep the Fball08 calendar in place. Sync your handheld to copy the events to the handheld.

iCal Users:

Use iCalTextImport to import the .CSV version of the schedule.

Download ncsufootball08.csv
Download uncfootball08.csv

(right click on the link above and “Save As…”)

Note: Use at your own risk. I do not accept responsibility for any consequences resulting from errors in the schedule.

Jan

Solving RBC Center Ingress (Part II)

Part one of this series introduced a simple plan to solve the RBC Center’s West side ingress problems. Each lot on the arena’s West side would have a dedicated lane and would, therefore, have uninterrupted traffic flow.

The RBC Center’s East parking lots are accessed by the three-lane Westchase Blvd. Because one of those lanes has to be designated for egress during ingress events, the traffic flow on the East side of the RBC Center has major inefficiencies. While there would not be a bottleneck, it would be impossible to dedicate a lane for each East side lot, Lots 1, 2 and 3, using the existing lane configurations. With a simple redesign of about 500 feet of curb on the arena’s West side, all lots could have a dedicated ingress road.

Part I advised dedicating a lane for Lots 4, 5, and 6. Lot 3 traffic must use the East side. By expanding capacity on the West side, however, Lot 3 traffic could use Edwards Mill Road and leave Westchase Blvd’s two ingress lanes for Lots 1 and 2.

In this plan, read more…

Jan

Solving RBC Center Ingress Problems (Part I)

Ever since the RBC Center’s opening in 1999 the traffic scheme in and out of the parking lots has been an enigma. Each year the traffic plan is changed, but a true solution is never found. While the plan for egress and ingress are different, hard game times make the ingress plan more important to the experience of the RBC Center’s customers.

I’m not sure if the traffic plan is different for NCSU games than it is for Carolina Hurricanes games, but the parking designation for the events is definitely different. The Hurricanes largely sell the lot spaces as day-of-event general admission while the basketball games get reserved section parking.

The arena has six paved lots surrounding its North, West, and South sides and has two small VIP lots outside its main entrance. The west side of the arena is served largely by access from the variable direction, five-lane Edwards Mill Road while the east side is served from a three-lane Westchase Blvd. All perimeter roads around the arena on the property have three lanes.

There are a few caveats to planning traffic ingress. There must be a lane reserved on each road for emergency vehicle egress. Thus, the 3-lane roads can only use two lanes in any particular direction. Additionally, it seems that the City of Raleigh insists that at least one lane on Edwards Mill Road be marked for upstream traffic.

Regardless, there are two easy answers for creating smooth ingress for events. Using the existing roads, simple lane assignments should solve all problems. Because there are three parking lots on the building’s West side (Lots 4, 5, and 6), one lane should be designated for each lot from Wade Avenue inward. The illustration above show the first solution, and is a detail view of this area . read more…

Posted by Dana on January 24, 2008 | Tags: Exclusives , Other , Sports . | ( 4 ) Comments

Jan

Carolina Railhawks Schedule for your PDA

Railhawks fans who like electronic calendars rejoice! The Carolina Railhawks have unveiled their 2008 schedule and gogoraleigh has it for you in .CSV format!

Outlook/Palm Users:

Create a new folder in your in Outlook calendar (Railhawks08, for example). Use the File | Import and Export… to import from “another program or file”, then “Comma Separated File (Windows)”. This will set up the Railhawks’ schedule in your new sub-calendar where you can make whatever changes you want.
When you are happy with the way the subcalendar looks, change the calendar view to “Events” (instead of 7-day or 31-Day or whatever view you’re using). “Select All” from the list, and drag them over to your main “Calendar” (The Treo and other Palm Handhelds only sync to the main calendar – time for Palm to get with the program on that one!). If you want to keep your sub calendar intact, use Ctrl-drag instead of plain drag. That will create a copy of each event to the main Calendar and keep the Railhawks08 calendar in place. Sync your handheld to copy the events to the handheld.

iCal Users:

Use iCalTextImport to import the .CSV version of the schedule.

Download railhawks08.csv
(right click on the link above and “Save As…”)

Note: Use at your own risk. I do not accept responsibility for any consequences resulting from errors in the schedule.

1/21/08 Update: Trisoccerfan.com has set up the schedule on Google Calendar , too.

Posted by Dana on January 15, 2008 | Tags: Exclusives , Sports . | ( 0 ) Comments

Jan

Chick-Fil-A Coming to Cameron Village

It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve confirmed that Chick-Fil-A will indeed be coming to Cameron Village. A year ago word was that they would occupy the old dry cleaners site behind McDonalds ( map it ). There is no indication that anything has changed. The only clue I got was that the plans reveal a two-story store with a very glassy dining area that extends over the drive-thru line.