Supposedly, Thursday's attendance at the NC State Fair was 108,929 -- trumpeted as "a new record for Food Lion Hunger Relief Day." Maybe Anoop Desai (who performed that evening) was a bigger draw than anyone thought. But I drove by the fairgrounds at midday with no trouble at all; barely even had to slow down, in fact.

So what I want to know is this: How is it possible that yesterday's six-figure crowd apparently caused nary a traffic ripple, when a crowd of fewer than 60,000 for the Oct. 3 U2 show resulted in the mother of all traffic jams?

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If you're one of 60,000 football fans heading to Chapel Hill for the Florida State game this evening, remember these words: park and ride.

Most Carolina football fans are familiar with all the places around town where you can leave your car and board a Tar Heel Express bus that will deliver you to Kenan Stadium for the 8pm kickoff.

The bus makes your ride easier, and it cuts down on traffic hassles for everybody else.

And the combination of football and rush hour guarantees that there will be traffic delays this evening.

Carolina is hosting Florida State in Kenan Stadium Thursday night, so we can expect the usual evening traffic hassle to be ten times worse around Chapel Hill and on I-40 in Durham County.

Chapel Hill isn't such an awful place on football Saturdays. They know how to do park-and-ride in that town.

But the roads will have lots of extra traffic Thursday evening, and university employees will have to knock off work early to clear out all those parking spaces for football fans.

Kickoff is a little after 8 p.m.

First it was $4 gas, and later it was the recession. Whatever the reason, Americans have cut back on their driving over the past 18 months.

That should mean fewer traffic backups on the way to work each day.

How does it look through your windshield?  Are you getting to work more quickly these days, and home in time for supper?  Do you think Triangle traffic problems have eased since 2007?

I'd like to get your perspective for a story I'm writing this week.  Please call or e-mail me, and be sure to include your name and daytime contact info. 

As if last week's kidnapping and bank robbery didn't draw enough police attention in eastern Wake County, why, I say, why are there so many patrol cars guarding the highway lately?

The first thing that comes to mind is the weather is nice and warm, and hey, it's summer time. People are getting out and doing things (both legal and illegal) and trying to get to their destination in record time.

But still a curiosity in my book is the joint effort between local towns' police officers on 64/264 between Wendell Boulevard and Highway 96 (Arendell Ave.).

It's got my attention because lately as you head toward Wendell from the Knightdale side of things there is a Zebulon K-9 unit monitoring the road, and then when you get past Lizard Lick (into the Zebulon jurisdiction) there are Wendell cops doing the same — more or less a role reversal. 

I thought that was weird enough, and still don't know if they're looking for someone in particular, drugs, or what, but then I saw the true conundrum — a Durham Five-O in Wendell. WOW. I know. Tell me about it. What could possibly be going on here?

One half of me wants to call the local police departments and put an end to my measureless curiosity, but the other half of me doesn't want to spoil the endless possibilities that stem from such ignorance. 

It's almost like the kind of thing that would become the perfect rumor in a small town. Maybe they're searching for aliens. If anyone knows the truth, or thinks they do, I'd love to hear about it.

See photos for a fiery crash involving five vehicles on I-40 at Wade Avenue.

Perhaps a new traffic pattern will speed the pre-game parking flow. That's what the RBC Center and the Carolinia Hurricanes are hoping.

Starting with Saturday's 7pm game against the Bruins, there will be three ingress (entering) lanes around the RBC Center loop road to the West 5000 lot — from 6pm until the West lot fills.

The new pattern will be in effect for Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 Canes games, too. Then RBC will evaluate the change to see whether it improved the pre-game traffic flow, said Mike Alexander, RBC parking and traffic manager..

Here are general parking tips for RBC patrons.

The RBC Center and Carolina Hurricanes will test a new traffic pattern for vehicles entering from Edwards Mill Road prior to Canes games. The new ingress, or entrance, pattern will begin Saturday, Dec. 27.
 
“On Saturday, December 27, we will set up and implement three ingress lanes around the RBC Center loop road to the West 5000 Lot at approximately 6:00 p.m., until the West Lot fills,” Mike Alexander, the team's parking and traffic manager, said in a prepared statement.  “We have worked hard this year to improve the traffic flow for our games, including the addition of a second left-turn lane from the intersection of Edwards Mill Road onto Trinity Road.”
 
The experiment will continue at the Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 hockey games.  The plan will then be re-evaluated.

We ran a Troubleshooter story in Saturday's N&O about about traffic concerns on Mt. Carmel Church Road, a road many take between Chatham County and U.S. 15-501 or to get to the university and hospital.

The story noted how many residents want a stop light at Bennett Road, where DOT plans to install left turn lanes. We didnt have room in that story to add  some numbers about speeding  near the intersection.  As one who drives down MLK from nothern Chapel Hill each morning, I can attest that  drivers all over Orange County seem to see speed limits as advisory only.

Here are statistics from a 24-hour traffic study along Mt. Carmel Church Road July 3. During that time period DOT found the following:

Traffic travelling North on Mt. Carmel:

4800 cars travelled this direction during the 24 hour period
Average speed: 45 mph
93% of vehicles exceed posted speed limit
15% of traffic are travelling at an average of 52.9 mph

Traffic travelling South on Mt. Carmel:

4700 cars travelled this direction during the 24 hour period
Average speed: 48.8 mph

During peak times there is a 2.7-3 second gap between cars
Mid day the gap is 1 minute

"These numbers will mean more to your readers if they are reminded that this is a 2 lane road and that the lanes on this road are narrower than NCDOT standards," writes reader Jeanne Brown, who sent us the DOT figures. "The posted speed limit along this stretch is 35 mph due to the fact that there are several large neighborhoods (in excess of 100 homes) that access the road here.  In addition, the road currently does not have shoulders."

Thank you, Jeanne

Tom Murphy is the former mayor of Pittsburgh. His home town formerly had more people and worse traffic than Raleigh has. He seems to know his way around the Triangle's muggy streets.

"The whole concept of the Research Triangle is based on two things: cheap gas and infrastructure that gets the car there easily," Murphy said Thursday at an Urban Land Institute forum on infrastructure needs and how to pay for them, where he was the keynote speaker. "If you don'thave the cheap gas, and you don't have the infrastructure -- because you're not paying for it -- where do you go?

"We're not going to have cheap gas any more. There's this game of chicken going on, that the technology is going to get to a 100 miles-per-gallon car before gas gets to $10 a gallon. But what if it doesn't?" Murphy said.