NRG - Carolina North: Don’t Get Stuck in Traffic

Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth (NRG) will sponsor a public meeting “Carolina North: Don’t Get Stuck in Traffic” on Sunday, May 3 from 4-6 pm at the Homestead Community Center (600 Homestead Road). The event will focus exclusively on traffic and transportation issues for Carolina North and will allow time to learn about the transportation challenges posed by Carolina North, and for plenty of dialogue among neighbors and elected officials.  

Thoughtful transportation planning is critical to the success of the proposed Carolina North campus. Traffic impacts resulting from Carolina North will be felt most immediately by the surrounding neighborhoods in northern Chapel Hill, but will ultimately affect all citizens in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and portions of Orange County.  Unfortunately, serious transportation planning for the thousands of additional cars and commuters that Carolina North will generate are just now under consideration.  The results of the major transportation planning studies -- the Traffic Impact Analysis and the Long Range Transit Plan – will be shared in early and mid May respectively.  Yet the June deadline looms, leaving citizens and Town and UNC staff little time to analyze the studies or to fashion safeguards in the final development agreement.

The results of a recent NRG public opinion survey to measure concerns about traffic and Carolina North highlighted many concerns about the transportation impacts of this development.  Even without Carolina North, traffic-related impacts like congestion, cut-through traffic and pedestrian and bicycle safety are already problems in many Chapel Hill neighborhoods in close proximity to Carolina North and on the major transportation corridors that will serve it.  Please take the online survey at the NRG website (http://nrg-nc.net) to record your concerns.   Data collected as of April 23 were turned over to the Town to supplement the traffic impact analysis.  However we will continue to collect the survey information, and we encourage you to record your views.

 

Time is very short for the public to react to the traffic challenges presented by this development.  NRG is providing this first opportunity for the public to interact on these issues with decision-makers.  We want to find a way to ensure that the public continues to be involved as the new campus is built out. These issues matter because the metrics of what is put in the development agreement on parking and building ratios, when traffic impact analyses are required, and what transit improvements will be required, will determine our future mobility and access.

We hope that you or someone from your household can attend this important meeting. Community input is critical.

Contact Julie McClintock at mcclintock.julie@mindspring.com with your questions.

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Comments

A goodly turnout.  (Ratio of officials to neighbors a wee bit heavy, but still...)What did anyone think?   (Had to leave before discussion groups formed.)

I appreciate all the work that went into putting this together.  I think everyone would have liked to have a little more time on the breakout sessions and then discussion of the summaries of those sessions.  Can't do everything at once I guess.The Transportation Impact Analysis (TIA) is now posted on the Town's website under Carolina North/documents.  It's about 265 pages (the executive summary is shorter but still ~15 MB).  Interestingly, the numbers of parking spaces calculated for academic uses (employee/student/resident) for phase I (705) and Phase II (2035)  are ratios of 86% and 84% respectfully.  I believe the current parking ratio on the main campus is about 50%.These numbers don't include the non-academic uses.  For Phase II the total parking (for 7100 individuals) is listed at 5835 spaces (82%).  I haven't had time to read the summary or the complete report yet to see what impact these numbers are expected to have.

As far as transportation is concerned, perhaps the best idea that come out of the Horace Williams Citizens' Committee -- and it originated with Joe Capowski, as I recall -- is to require that the ratio of parking spaces to total square footage in the buildings on Carolina North should be smaller than on the existing UNC campus. What you are describing is a different ratio, of course, but the essential point is the same. The HWCC report was endorsed by Council and the University administration supposedly accepts a commitment to it, as well. But what you have revealed is another example of how the administration does not appear to be serious about these commitments.I urge current Council members and others to hold the administration’s feet to the fire about this particular requirement, as well as another closely related one from the HWCC report. Here they are:"De-emphasize auto use by establishing a smaller ratio of parking spaces to square footage than that of the main campus." (Transportation and Land Use Principles; Goal 1B, Strategy f)"Strictly limit parking (for example 1 space for every 3 employees and/or a specified cap), and develop different parking limits for retail, residential, and institutional uses for this site. Ensure that Carolina North does not become a park-and-ride lot for the main campus." (Transportation and Land Use Principles; Goal 1A, Strategy b)James Coley

James,I should point out that the numbers I gave were taken from the first table in the draft Executive Summary.  Clarification by the town staff suggested that UNC has proposed for Phase I a ratio (~0.65:1) slightly higher than the current ratio (~0.5:1) on the main campus (800,000 SF) and proposes then decreasing that ratio to about the current ratio at the end of Phase II (3,000,000 SF).  The consultant that prepared the report showed, for comparison, in Tables 10 and 11 of the draft Executive Summary (pages 4-9 and 4-10) what the numbers would look like if the Phase I was reduced by 10% and the Phase II base by 10 or 20%.

Did not go to meeting. I have been to enough Carolina North meetings and asked about aggressively building usage of the rail line that goes right past the site from potentially Pittsboro St all the way to the main line that goes to Raleigh to know that they could care less about the best transportation feature of the Horace Williams site (the rail line). They could potentially run trolleys right down the center of the site down to main campus.Thx

I fear the CN transportation problems are like downtown parking:If you provide free downtown parking the students will park there to go to class or the staff to go to their jobs;contrary to university and environmentalist's dreams, you will not be able to force CN employees to live at Carolina North or on any public transit route....they will live elsewhere and want to drive their cars to work.The University knows this, we all know this....the ball's in who's court?

A reasonable number of them might be more willing to live in or near CN if they could afford to.  Fat chance of that happening however - I see and hear little of any real substance that would reduce (for the vast majority of the actual people who will be employed at CN) the necessity of commuting in from 15 or 20 miles away.

Has there been any suggestion/talk/analysis of using a park-n-ride lot at the edge of Town (say, Eubanks), and having frequent bus trips between there and CN?  They already do this with the Friday Center park-n-ride, the S Route, and its frequent trips to main campus.  I used this combo for 3 years without difficulty or inconvenience.  Allowing little student parking on main campus has been the norm for years.  Why does it have to be any different for CN?

If the location of the Eubanks lot is problematic for residents in the area (along Eubanks), I know there are other open parcels up there that might work better for I-40 access. They could make a dedicated express route if needed.  In any case, a park-n-ride allows students/employees to live elsewhere than near a transit route (as far out in the country as they want, or wherever), but still use transit where we really need them to (the MLK corridor).

There are some interesting recent articles in the New York Times relevant to the idea of "car-free" zones in urban environments. It is usually difficult to create such spaces in existing cities and towns, but in the case of Carolina North there is a tremendous opportunity, since it will be built from scratch. Click here for an article about a largely car-free community in Germany, and here for a slide show about it.  Click here for comments about going car-free in the United States, and here for another related comment.James Coley

Great article James, don't know if we could get folks around here to pay $40,000 for a parking spot on the outskirts of town though.

Well then, I guess they will just have to go car-free! James Coley

James's proposal goes beyond Square One to Clean Slate for progressive, inventive CN planning.  Square One was the disappointing Innovation Center (sigh); by designating CN a Car Free Zone, the administration could put some real vision on the front burner.   Sure it's a stretch, but certain wobbly dominoes would fall right into place. 

Thanks, Cat. I know you have the vision and foresight to appreciate the importance of this. Of course, I have never thought automobiles should be kept out of Carolina North; the idea is to have one or more “car-free” zones within it. This is defined by four features: (1) No roads, streets or automobile parking within the zone (except perhaps for one bus-only road), (2) A transit stop (for bus or rail) in the center of the zone, (3) Access to the zone for emergency vehicles, and perhaps small delivery trucks, (4) Automobile parking just beyond the periphery of the zone. I proposed this to Holden Thorp last July. In reply, he (or somebody) wrote, in part, the following about the plan for building on the Horace Williams grounds.“The plan promotes the use of transit for access to Carolina North by placing transit stops so that virtually every element of the site will be no more than 1,000 feet from a bus stop.  The plan also encompasses an east-west transit corridor, on which only transit traffic will be permitted.  Moreover, bike paths and pedestrian walkways, with connections to adjacent areas are being planned from the start.  "At the same time, some tenants at Carolina North will need and expect to access Carolina North by car.  For these people the plan for Carolina North includes a “regional” parking strategy that is intended to capture cars soon after they enter the site with the result of reducing automobile traffic on the site and promoting pedestrian movement to office or lab destinations. “I am confident that the plan will strike an excellent balance among the various issues that must be addressed.  I hope you agree that some of the features described above achieve much of the intent of your suggestion for a car-free zone without imposing that restriction in an arbitrary way.” Maybe the chancellor thinks a car-free zone would be "arbitrary." But that seems to me to be just the sort of reaction to genuine transit-oriented planning that shows a lack of vision for Carolina North. Also, I am skeptical about how many of the good ideas mentioned in the reply really are part of the current planning. James Coley

I agree with James. It is time for bold action. UNC needs to embrace the challenges rather than take an Obama-esque approach and do slightly less than just-enough to satisfy critics.

There was an excellent "Blueprint America" broadcast last night on PBS. The "Road to the Future" episode is a documentary on the problem of automobile dominance and efforts to find a better way to organize urban transportation in the US. Here is a link to the website, where you can click through to view the documentary online. Carolina North could be a showcase of the new urbanism if the decision-makers have the vision and courage it takes to become part of this national movement.             http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica James Coley

Jack Evans in yesterday's Chapel Hill News said:  "I think what will happen if you restrict parking too much is people just won't want to be at Carolina North". Remember the LAC, the Ken Broun-led committee, where all the parties, including UNC agreed that CN  would be designed for mass transit as the principle metod for getting people to work.  I can't remember the exact phrase that was agreed on, can someone help?In any case, the devil is indeed in the details.  In the tranportation impact analysis, the private R&D use (the companies that were related to UNC and who originally were the motivators for creating CN) specified 2.5 parking space per thousand square feet of office space.  Do the math; this is one parking space per 400 square feet.  The standard planning ratios for this type of office use call for 400 square feet per employee.  Put the two together to get 1 parking space per employee.  Good bye mass transit.   

I noticed the quote from Evans, who has demonstrated time and time again that he lacks the needed vision and courage on the transportation issue. What does he think Carolina North will be? A big box store that has to worry about whether people will come by if they don't drive there? Does he think that law students will boycott their classes if they can't get to them by car? Does he think that researchers will turn down a job because they might have to use transit to get to work? Finally, does he not see that the main campus functions perfectly well with the so-called "parking shortage?"The noble fight for transit-oriented design at Carolina North may never be won, but it is better to fight the good fight anyway. The elected officials in Chapel Hill and Carrboro must continue to push back against the excessive parking the University administration wants. James Coley

You seem to believe that the person you refer to as "that guy" has not only the power, but the authority to do as you desire. Do you really know anything about his vision and courage?  Seems like you are making the mistake of assuming that there is some unitary actor who can make decisions about CN.This entire process for years has proven, if nothing else, that's just not the case.

I know that Evans has relatively little power or authority, and I have never given any indication to the contrary. But he is the person in the University administration who has been designated to manage the issues around Carolina North. I know him and have discussed these issues with him; I can indeed attest to his lack of vision and courage about the transportation issues. Obviously I do not make the mistake of thinking that there is one person who can make all the decisions, since in an earlier post I wrote “Carolina North could be a showcase of the new urbanism if the decision-makers have the vision and courage it takes to become part of this national movement.” Note the use of the plural. James Coley

Note the post that I was responding to - it's indented.  Note also in your second paragraph how many time you use the word "he."  My observation seems reasonable given what you wrote in that post.

Not

Your observation was not reasonable given my frequent use of the word "he" in the previous post, indeed it was a non sequitur. Your observation was about how much power I think Evans has. My post was mainly a series of rheorical questions aimed at underminig his claim that limited automobile parking at Carolina North would mean that people would not want to go there. That carried no implications or assumptions about his power. In any case, this is a digression, so I will stop. You can have the last word, Fred.James Coley

I cannot imagine the Board of Aldermen agreeing to 4 travel lanes on Estes Drive or Homestead Road - their vote to kill the Smith Level Road compromise (4-lanes w/sidewalks and bikelanes) makes that very clear.  I don't think the Town Council has a notably different opinion about similar road issues in Chapel Hill.  So, where are we?  Carolina North will have to be transit oriented, pedestrian freindly, and bike freindly - or else it will fail.  UNC can get real and commit to alternative transportation - or not.  But I don't imagine that it will change the minds of the present or future elected officials.  So how about we all get committed to a solution that is cost-effective AND environmentally sensitive?Here's how it would work:1. Major investment in North/South transit connections between UNC and Carolina North.2. Expanded public transit to North Chatham, Alamance and Durham.3. More Park-and-Ride lots at the edge of the transit system.4. Bike and pedestrian greenways leading to CN from surrounding neighborhoods in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.5. On-site housing at Carolina North.It won't matter how many parking spaces there are at Carolina North if it is impractical to drive to them because the streets are so congested.  I hope that will not be the way that alternative transportation is thrust upon Carolina North.  But if UNC won't commit (in action, not just words) to the five ideas above, then the local governments will have no choice but to make it happen by refusing to allow new travel lanes on the roads leading there.  It is sad to say that that is how the present UNC campus got to be so green- because the Town Council simply refused to accomodate all of the single-passenger traffic that wanted to get there.Do we really need to repeat that drama to persuade you, South Building?  I know UNC is interested in alternative transportation, and I know UNC can make walking, biking and public transportation work, so why shy away now?  Simply because you have room to build parking lots at CN?

Mark, you are one of the elected officials who do have the vision and courage we need. But I have a couple of questions about your post.First, in item one, what do you have in mind? A bus connection or a rail connection? MLK or the rail corridor? Both? Either? Neither? If you are leaving all this open, that might be wise. But we can take bus service on MLK as a given, and should fight for more, don't you think? I still carry the banner for some kind of fixed-guideway North-South connection, whether it is rail or a dedicated busway.Second, are your five items offered as an alternative to, or in addition to, the strategy of keeping on the pressure to limit parking, to drive the issue of providing better alternatives? I hope your answer is the latter. If we had a lot of people in the University administration with your vision on this, that would be one thing. But, as things stand, I think it is a political reality that this strategy is necessary to get anything good to come out of the process as far as transportation is concerned. James Coley

A bus connection or a rail connection?Well, I have an opinion about that, but the point is really that the transit has got to happen, regardless of which option turns out to be the most practical.alternative to, or in addition to, the strategy of keeping on the pressure to limit parking . . .? Well, it should really be in addition to limited parking, James.  But I wonder how much say-so we really have about that.  Regardless, my point is that no matter how much parking some folks in South Building are hoping for, the parking solution will not work because the elected officials are not going to be willing to expand the roads to accomodate it.  Also, the cost of gasoline will probably make a single passenger vehicle solution impractical.That doesn't mean we should give up on limiting parking - quite the opposite: It means UNC should give up on expanding the parking.

I don't think the Town Council has a notably different opinion about similar road issues in Chapel Hill. I wish we could be sure of that.  I remember the brouhaha over widening/straightening 86/then-Airport Rd., although perhaps if it has a state route designation, the governance is different (is it?).  Pressure to widen Estes "from Caswell to MLK," if not all the way down to Franklin, is already there; and although stiff neighborhood opposition can be expected, I have trouble imagining that Estes will ultimately escape being widened, with or without increased mass transit.  Indeed, if I remember correctly, one of the projections re: transportation suggested a dedicated bus lane on Estes.  And the entire question of where transit routes will lie, and how they will be serviced, does remind us that the buses, trolleys, or even light rail, have to go somewhere (failing installation of an overhead monorail).   

It is infeasible to discuss Carolina North and the 900 or so acres there in any sustainable context without having living quarters sufficient to house the people who will work there and attend school there.  Otherwise, the whole thing is flat out unsustainable, continuing the defunct paradigm that we can have large numbers of people driving in and out of the area.The decision to limit the development to a small region of the whole acreage is myopic and does not allow flexibility for having different types of living quarters in different regions...e.g. dorms, faculty houses, condos/townhouses, apartments, etc.  There is plenty of room for all of this, with appropriate walking and bikeways, and lots of green space, all resulting in minimizing travelling in and out of the "campus" aka Carolina North. Look at it as whole, think outside the box and build something that is sustainable and not another albatross for the next generations.

The first CN/Horace Williams committee that I was on started in 1992.  In every committee since, people have touted the value of the rail corridor and how it should be used to move people between the two campuses and for recreation.  It offers its three MAJOR advantages over MLK: no hills,  no traffic lights, and no congestion.Even if  two dedicated bus lanes with traffic light-control mechanisms were created in the middle of MLK, without a too-expensive tunnel or overpass, the buses hit the wall, the wall of congestion, at Rosemary, especially at rush hours. Mark, correct me if I am wrong, but I remember that the barrier to using the rail line is neither physical nor technical, it is state-wide political.  The NC Railroad Company owns the corridor, and does not want  to share it, even though its rail line is used very infrequently and at low speeds to deliver coal to the cogen plant and even less frequently for deliveries to Fitch and Southern States.  Why can't UNC use its clout with the RR Company and the legislature to gain a shared use of the RR line? 

70% of the capital stock of the State University Railroad is owned by Norfolk Southern (NS) who operates the line as an NS subsidary. 10% of the stock is owned by UNC itself. NS owns it because its predecessor corporation supplied 70% of the capital back in the 1880s when it was built. The NC Railroad divested its stock to UNC about 10 years ago for various reasons. There are a few private shareholders, they are heirs of prominent Chapel Hillians from the 1880s. The flexibility of NS is far less han if the NCRR owned the line.

As you know, Joe, I have been working to promote the use of the rail corridor for Carolina North for many years. And, as you also know, the tracks extend North to University Station, from which a spur goes East to Durham and Raleigh. Although it is a somewhat indirect route, the train service to Carolina North could tie into a rail transit system for the whole of the Triangle. Over these years I have become convinced that the only real obstacles to the use of the corridor are political. Some of them may be state-wide, but some of them are local. If the University administration and the TTA would get behind it, the physical and technical challenges could be met, the relevant neighborhoods could be protected, and we could have rail transit service that would benefit Carolina North and provide a strong alternative to driving.The real obstacle is a lack of will. The old saying is that where there's a will there's a way. Unfortunately, this is a case where there is lack of will, and thus there is no way this will happen. I remain hopeful, if not optimistic, that this will change. James Coley

 This past weekend I went hiking in Horace Williams near the Tripp Farm Road area, and saw this sign posted by the University. It reads, in part, “Positively No Motorized Vehicles.” So the administration has the right policy about Carolina North and transportation. It should just keep that policy in place after it starts building. James Coley

Just think of what a good deal this will be for craftsmen and porters, just like in the days when they built the Pyramids.  With no construction trucks and no deliveries by motorized vehicles, we will use lots of laborers and keep our air cleaner at the same time.  Of course, it will take just a little longer to do it the old way! 

Could be very entertaining, with all the donkey carts, elephants pushing large lots of construction materials, the chickens keeping track of time . . . And has anyone looked into pedicabs as basic transportation within CN?

Last night the Chapel Hill council approved the Carolina North development agreement, but I don't find the documents online anywhere. Does someone know where they are?My real concern is about what restictions on automobile parking the agreement includes. Does anyone know the final result for that? James Coley

All of the related documents are posted on last night's agenda page.  Parking provisions begin on page 22 of the development agreement.  There were a few very minor changes to the development agreement made at the meeting which are not reflected in the document: if I recall correctly, one was regarding the addition of language requiring greenways be built to town standards for transportation purposes, and another clarifying language regarding monitoring of stormwater protection efforts.

Thanks, Jason.James Coley

 

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