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For tens of thousands of people who walk across Trinity Road in West Raleigh when the Wolfpack is playing football or the N.C. State Fair is in session, maybe it's time to build a tunnel.

NCDOT will air the idea and seek public comment at a public information session Monday.  It takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Murphy Football Center at Carter-Finley Stadium. Details are attached below.

During busy times at the State Fair in October, a few thousand pedestrians walk across Trinity Road in a single hour.  After the UNC-NCSU football game last November, there were 4,000 in 30 minutes.

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Almost four years later, there’s no doubt about it.

The program Tom O’Brien took over after the 2006 season is in better shape than the one he left behind.

Russell Wilson passed for 328 yards and three touchdowns as N.C. State hammered Boston College 44-17 this afternoon at Carter-Finley Stadium. O’Brien, who coached Boston College from 1997 to 2006, had been 0-3 against the Eagles as the Wolfpack’s coach.

Linebacker Nate Irving, whose infectious smile had lit up the field as N.C. State won his first four games, turned around slowly to face reporters after the game Saturday night.

In its first game as a ranked team since 2003, the Wolfpack had lost 41-30 to Virginia Tech after racing out to a 17-0, second-quarter lead.

I-40 and Wade Avenue in West Raleigh will be especially unpleasant at rush hour this afternoon, for traffic in both directions.  You might want to find another way home.

A timely repeat from Jay Price's story this morning:

If you want to have some fun, ring up a giant concert promoter -- Live Nation, say -- and ask to see the contract for a huge concert -- U2, say -- at a public facility. O.K., maybe "fun" isn't quite the right word. But the indignantion that such questions induce can be quite entertaining.

Entertainment value aside, however, the law says that such information must be divulged when it is asked for. It's interesting to see all the details, financial and otherwise, spelled out about a show like U2's Oct. 3 concert at NC State's Carter-Finley Stadium. And that's why we're here, to jump through the hoops of Freedom of Information Act requests to get those documents in order to pass the data on to you. N&O reporters have been asking to see the U2 contracts for months, and they finally hit paydirt this week. Check the results here.

Also, here's an interesting piece about the finances of the whole U2 tour.

U2 blew into town with its 360 Tour Saturday night. Click through to see how it went; and also to check out some pretty danged amazing photographs of the whole thing.

There's a long list of things you can't bring into Carter-Finley Stadium for Saturday's U2 show, including food, drink containers, bags, backpacks, bottles, artificial noise-makers, video cameras, large flags, weapons and so on. But you'd better bring a sizable quantity of cash, which you'll have to start handing over before you even get inside.

According to the Ticketmaster update that went out to ticket-holders this week, parking at the U2 show will cost $20 per car -- multiples more than what usually gets charged for non-VIP concert parking around these parts. If you want to drive to the show in your RV, that will cost an even steeper $40.

A Live Nation spokesperson declined comment when asked who had set the price.

"That money will be part of the concert settlement," says Shannon Yates, assistant athletic director for game operations at Carter-Finley. "It will be used for various facility upgrades in the athletic department."

Football fans leaving Saturday's NCSU game with Murray State should watch out for officers who will be pointing to unfamiliar exit routes from some Carter-Finley Stadium parking lots.

The new egress routes should speed the flow and get fans home sooner, NCSU said today. The plan is intended to send all exiting traffic away from the stadium, and to avoid sending any lanes back into other exiting traffic.

Cars leaving Gate B will turn south along Youth Center Road, then right onto Hillsborough Street.

Cardinal Gibbons traffic will exit from the rear of the lot onto Trinity Road only, and not onto Edwards Mill Road. The NCSU veterinary college parking lot will empty onto Hillsborough instead of Blue Ridge Road.

West Chase traffic will be reduced from three to two lanes before it turns left onto Blue Ridge.

Read the detailed plan for all parking lots here.

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N.C. State University has a football game at 7 p.m. Thursday in Carter-Finley Stadium, so let's get ready for a special pre-game feature on the streets of West Raleigh:

A rush-hour traffic contest between fans and commuters.

Football fans will try to claim the home-field advantage — even before they park their cars for the game between NCSU and the South Carolina Gamecocks.

Commuters who usually travel through West Raleigh on Interstate 40, Wade Avenue, Blue Ridge Road and other nearby streets should consider playing an away game instead. Stay as far away from Carter-Finley as possible. ... [MORE]

Following weeks of rumors, U2 dates are leaking out -- and Raleigh appears to be on the schedule. At this point, however, it's not yet official.

Tour dates on the band's Web site only go through Sept. 24 at Giants Stadium. But another listing goes forward with a second leg that includes Raleigh for Oct. 3, with the venue listed as Carter-Finley Stadium. As it happens, Oct. 3 does fall between home NC State Wolfpack dates at Carter-Finley, which has home games scheduled against Pittsburgh on Sept. 26 and Duke on Oct. 10.

"I'm not sure [U2]'s been finalized," NC State athletic department spokeswoman Annabelle Myers said Monday morning. "As of Friday, it was not."

I'm still awaiting a call back from Live Nation, so we'll see.

(Props to trianglemusic for the initial scoop.)