traffic

The Truth About Traffic

Whenever there’s a new development proposal pending before a local governing board, the center of the conversation always seems to gravitate toward traffic. Given this tendency, I think it’s important we understand historic traffic changes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation maintains historic traffic counts for urban areas around the state, including Chapel Hill. These traffic counts date back to 1997, with the most recent data being from 2013. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the average annual daily traffic in some major areas around town:

 

Area

1997

2004

2013

Change, 2013 vs. 1997

W Franklin St (just west of Columbia St)

17,400

18,000

12,000

Obey Creek

I just returned home from a three plus hour meeting about Obey Creek. This was the last meeting before Chapel Hill decides to enter a development agreement negotiation. Phase I the Compass Committee ended last winter, Phase II addional information gathering has been during the last six months and phase III negotiations will probably begin soon. The first hour was a repeat of the traffic analysis presentation that was given last month at the library. More data will be obtained from additional studies but the analysis incorporates 1.2% traffic growth rate as the back ground increase in traffic. It projects 10% of the Obey Creek development traffic to be carried by mass transit. The next two hours were devoted to the general Obey Creek plan, modifications and potential points for negotiation. The general plan would allocate 50 acres for green space ( part of which could become come a school if needed) and 30acres developed near 15-501. At the end Roger stood up and stated that if Council permitted less than 1,000,000 square feet he would use current zoning for creating 120 homes on the 85 acres.

Planning for the Carolina North "Apron" -- Carts and Horses

Does anyone remember how all those charts and graphs of Carolina North never showed much about what lies outside the campus -- i.e., the rest of the town and county?  I remember thinking, "hey, the world doesn't end along the MLK/Airport Rd. median strip!"    Town planners seemed much exercised about the general town-wide impact of CN, but there seemed to be a general shrug about the impact on proximate neighborhoods except from the point of view of bus and bicycle lanes. 

For those who missed it, last month's inaugural Kidical Mass in Carrboro was a huge success. Thanks to all the organizers!

CVS submits plans for large store in Old Carrboro

As reported in our local newspapers (see here & here), CVS has submitted plans to the town of Carrboro to build a large CVS and parking lot on the corner of N. Greensboro St. &  Weaver St.  This development would demolish at least 2 historic buildings, cut down many trees, create more traffic problems and the parking lot would be placed on a residential street.

See my previous two posts to get more details on the history of the project so far.

There are some new pieces of information that are relevant to the development:

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