Planning & Transportation

Walkable, dense neighborhoods are good for us. That’s what this recent CityLab article concludes, citing numerous peer-reviewed research studies. And not only are these kinds of neighborhoods good for us, they’re good for the sustainability of our communities long term. For example:

Coffee and buses, under most circumstances, discussing these two seemingly unrelated things in the same sentence would seem strange, that is unless you're talking about a certain part of Chapel Hill. I of course am talking about Weaver Diary Road, a fairly major thoroughfare in the Northern part of of town whose underwhelming bus service marks a major problem for the Chapel Hill Transit system.

The fundamental problem lies in the fact that the current bus line that services Weaver Diary Road, the T Route, only goes as far as East Chapel Hill High School. If a resident of the lower section of Weaver Dairy wants to go grab coffee at the popular Joe Van Gogh cafe located at the Timberlyne shopping complex via public transit, they will be forced to take a long and complicated route with at the very least 1 transfer. Furthermore, Joe Van Gogh is but one of many prominent businesses located at the intersection of MLK Boulevard and Weaver Dairy Road, all of which are not easily accessible to the residents of lower Weaver Dairy Road due to the current alignment of the T Route. 

On the agenda for this week's meeting of the Town of Chapel Hill Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board is a discussion of bicycle safety improvement. Much of this is in response to the death of a woman on a bicycle who was hit by a motor vehicle near the intersection of Hillsborough Road and MLK Jr. Blvd, a notoriously dangerous part of town on which to ride a bike. 

The Town has decided to make bicycle safety a priority and has already taken several steps, including an awareness campaign, changes to pedestrian crossings on MLK Jr. Blvd and adding green-painted sharrows to roads on certain popular bike corridors.