planning

Light rail

On June 27, the Chapel Hill Town Council will be providing recommendations to the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Transportation Advisory Committee regarding the alignment of the proposed light rail line which will connect Chapel Hill with Durham, UNC Hospitals with Duke Hospital and downtown Durham. As a Meadowmont resident, I'm particularly interested in the choices of routing which involve Meadowmont, and I'm interested in what others in the local progressive community think about the options.

When the approval of the Meadowmont community was up before Town Council in 1995, one of its selling points, and presumably one of the reasons Roger Perry and East-West Partners were allowed to build at such high densities, was the reservation of a 50-foot wide mass-transit corridor (see also here). The corridor is still there, still free of development, and passes by the commercial area and rental apartments before making a turn behind the residences in the Cedars retirement community.

Regional Transit To Carrboro, Please!

Triangle Transit is proposing service changes for the 15-501 corridor between Chapel Hill and Durham. I (and others in the region) believe that these service changes should include regional transit service through downtown Carrboro so that residents can take a direct bus to Durham.  

Carrboro has the highest transit ridership per capita in North Carolina (9%) without even having a direct bus service out to places where many residents work and hang out (namely downtown Durham, RTP, etc.).  At the same time, Carrboro is building up and not out, which means that our land use supports increased transit services.  We have the highest density of all large towns and cities in NC with high transit ridership.  Finally, I think that economically, increased transit service to Carrboro would very much benefit both downtown Carrboro and West Franklin Street in Chapel Hill by allowing riders from Durham a much faster way to get to our stores and food offerings.  

Chapel Hill Long Range Transit Plan

I just left a public information session put on by the Town of Chapel Hill about the Chapel Hill/Carrboro/UNC Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), as discussed on the Town's website. Chapel Hill's plan includes the assumption that the LRTP of the Durham-Chael Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (DCHC MPO) will be adopted and that light rail will be a reality along the NC 54 corridor and on some of US 15/501. Other than that admittedly optimistic assumption, the plan is extremely feasable. Don't get me wrong, I desperately hope that light rail will implemented, but it is far from assured.

Farmers Prefer Orange County Jurisdiction

33 farmers and land owners, living in the Carrboro ETJ, have petitioned Orange County and the town of Carrboro to return jurisdiction for ETJ farms to Orange County. 

 

PETITION TO REMAND DEVELOPMENT JURISDICTION

FOR CARRBORO ETJ LAND TO ORANGE COUNTY CONTROL

 

To:   The Town of Carrboro, North Carolina

Revisting Assumptions

I applaud the Mayor and Council for meeting to examine the assumptions that they have held about growth and planning development in Chapel Hill as described in the 2/28 Herald Sun Article below:

         Council revisits assumptions on high density projects

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