It’s happened again. Someone has written to the Chapel Hill Town Council imploring them not to “pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” When I hear someone use those lyrics when discussing the possible development of housing, I immediately know I have encountered an unfortunately not-so-rare breed: the Boomer NIMBY (BoomBY™). Blending the worst […]
Transportation
Posted inConnectivity
Connecting streets, and 184,756 unique paths to Whole Foods
If you’ve traveled along Estes Drive in the past year, you’ve encountered a perfect use case for why connected streets are important. I have yet to speak to anyone that’s excited about having to travel on Estes Drive during this construction (or even before the construction). This single road illustrates more clearly than any in […]
Posted inConnectivity
Less time in cars equals safer roads for everyone
In my last post, I wrote about how connected roads make our communities safer. Connected roads also reduce the time we spend in cars, which provide large but overlooked traffic safety benefits. This may seem counterintuitive because much of traffic safety planning has, for decades, revolved around reducing risky behavior: teens get graduated licenses, we […]
Posted inTransportation
CRX bus riders in Chapel Hill: Did you know GoTriangle plans to change the route? Probably not!
GoTriangle has proposed eliminating one and possibly both bus stops that are used by Chapel Hill riders of the CRX bus line. The CRX bus line is the express bus that connects Chapel Hill to Raleigh. Sadly, the CRX bus has not been running this winter due to staffing shortages at GoTriangle. When it is […]
Posted inTransportation
Why connected roads make communities safer and better
The way we have been designing our streets and neighborhoods have actually made our streets more dangerous. Let’s go back a bit: Starting in the 1930s, suburban design in the United States has been heavily influenced by the Radburn Idea, which originates from a planned suburban community with the same name in North Jersey. Radburn […]
Posted inFrom the archives
Take a look at this Chapel Hill-Carrboro Transportation plan from 1976
Wilson Library at UNC is a treasure trove of documents related to the history of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. On one visit, we came across the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Transportation Plan from 1976, which we scanned – in full. Written in March of 1976, the document talks about the formation of Estes Drive, Umstead Drive, Piney […]