54/40 study draws complaints

November 17, 2010

A proposed 2,000-space parking lot is generating the most concern

The public-comment period has several more weeks to go, but the N.C. 54/I-40 Corridor Study is already signed up for a refresher course.
"Let's just say we are hearing enough opposition we are considering a phase-two evaluation," said Leta Huntsinger, transportation engineer with the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization.
The 600-page study, jointly commissioned by Chapel Hill and Durham, lays out a 25-year master plan for transportation improvements and land use between the U.S. 15-501 Bypass (Fordham Boulevard) in Chapel Hill and N.C. 751 in Durham.
"It's a major corridor that has the worst traffic of any coming into town," said Chapel Hill Town Councilman Ed Harrison, who lives within the study area in the Durham County portion of Chapel Hill.
Since the study went out for reaction in August, some of its suggestions have been criticized.
Huntsinger said there are three points of special dissatisfaction:
Converting intersections on N.C. 54 to the "superstreet design" that restricts left turns and requires traveling farther to make them
Planning for growth and development at all, rather than planning to keep development down
A $40 million, 2,000-space parking deck at the proposed high-density mixed-use Leigh Village development on rural Farrington Road, near Creekside Elementary School in Durham, meant to serve commuters into Chapel Hill and a light-rail line between Chapel Hill and Durham.
Residents of The Oaks area petitioned the Chapel Hill Town Council to oppose a recommendation for increased bus service along Burning Tree and Pinehurst drives at a Nov. 8 public forum on the study. At the same meeting, Meadowmont Community Association President James White objected to a light-rail route and to connecting Meadowmont Lane into a system of collector streets.
Those issues are unlikely to arise any time soon, said Town Councilman Ed Harrison. Other parts of Chapel Hill want better bus service and need it far more than The Oaks, and any Meadowmont Lane connection is a generation away at least.
"[Meadowmont residents] really don't want road connections and really don't want transit connections either," Harrison said.
Orange County Commissioner Barry Jacobs and Durham City Councilman Mike Woodard said the parking deck and Leigh Village - suggested as a 75-unit per acre development -- have generated the most and the loudest opposition from citizens who see them destroying Farrington Road's bucolic character and serving Chapel Hill at Durham's expense.
Deborah McCarthy, who lives in Durham County near the site, said the study is "a report of, by, and for the Town of Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina and a few landowners here in Durham who stand to profit."
Several other Durham residents and some members of the Durham Planning Commission have also complained the study has a Chapel Hill bias. Inadequate environmental protection is another common complaint, with the study area including already polluted New Hope Creek.
Currently, most of the 54/I-40 corridor gets a failing grade according to the standard scale traffic engineers use. N.C. 54 in the study area currently carries about 45,000 vehicles a day; projections are that in another 10 years it will carry 70,000.
"Seventy thousand is what Capital Boulevard in Raleigh gets," said Woodard, a past chairman of the MPO's transportation committee. "That's one of the choke points in the Triangle."
How Chapel Hill and Durham are going to handle the public's objections while still decongesting the corridor and accommodating growth is going to be a major job, Huntsinger said.
"We've still got two or three weeks of public involvement left," she said. After that, the experts will have to convene and figure out, "What do we do next? And then find the money."
Hopes were to have a final plan for the town's review and approval before spring. "Phase two evaluation" is going to take another four to six months, Huntsinger said, and then there must be another round of public comment and revision.
"It's our hope that, by addressing these key concerns, next time around we can get majority support," she said.
"I don't look at it as we got it wrong. I feel it's more representative of what a challenging study it's been from the beginning."
In any case, Huntsinger wants to have a plan in place by the time a reviving economy starts raising development pressure on the corridor.
"I think we're seeing signs of that," she said.

by JIM WISE, Staff Writer

Originally published by the Chapel Hill News on 11/17/2010, http://www.thedurhamnews.com/2010/11/17/v-print/204427/5440-corridor-study-draws-complaints.html