Morgan Creek Greenway Sets a New Standard for Local Bike Facilities

Posted on July 11, 2014 by patrick

While Chapel Hill and Carrboro have some of the highest rates of walking and cycling for transportation in North Carolina and the Southeast, there is still a lot of work to be done to build a continuous network of bike/ped infrastructure that both IS safe and FEELS safe. The recently published final Chapel Hill Bike Plan notes that one of the primary reasons identified by residents for why they do not ride their bike for transportation is safety. (see pages 25-27 for the excellent Level of Traffic Stress Assessment)

With that in mind, it is critical to recognize the outstanding leap forward that the Morgan Creek Greenway project in southern Chapel Hill represents, and the standard it sets for other future off-road and on-road facilities in the area.

Recently we’ve begun taking family bike rides on the Morgan Creek Greenway, and the reasons are numerous:

It’s safe from cars. The greenway is 10 feet wide and from where we usually begin at a parking lot off of NC 54 to Southern Village, there is not a single roadway to cross thanks to the new Culbreth Rd. underpass. Within Southern Village, the crossings of the streets are on low-speed, 2-lane only roads with limited traffic, 3-way or 4-way stop signs, and pedestrian bulb-outs at the crossing points.
The scenery is terrific – creeks, bridges, honeysuckle bushes, wildlife.
It takes you somewhere- we usually integrate dinner in Southern Village into the roundtrip; the picnic tables outside Pazzo are in the shade late in the day.

Here’s a map of the Morgan Creek Greenway, connected to the Fan Branch Trail, via the Culbreth Rd underpass. While the graphic says “trail segment planned for 2014,” I’m sure that will be updated soon – the trail and underpass are completed and open.

Morgan Creek Greenway (map by Town of Chapel Hill)

While at present, the trail seems to end at a parking lot along NC 54, this project is part of a larger effort to bring the trail all the way to University Lake. Another great benefit of this trail’s current and future alignment is that in addition to the already-served Scroggs Elementary school, there is the potential to also link Culbreth Middle School, Frank Porter Graham Elementary, and Carrboro High School to the same trail. You can take a look at the future potential of this greenway by viewing page 13 of this PDF on the Town of Carrboro website.

By the time the greenway reaches Smith Level Rd, the current project to add bike lanes and sidewalks to Smith Level Rd should be complete to the Morgan Creek Bridge near the Carrboro Public Works facility. This will allow the growing network of on-road bicycle lanes to connect with the off-road network that includes the greenway system.

Everybody who had a hand in making this happen in Chapel Hill should be very proud- it’s a terrific community asset!

Here are a few more photos from various locations along this map.

Bridge Over Morgan Creek

Culbreth Rd Underpass Approach from the South

Fan Branch Trail Section

Looking Through Culbreth Rd Underpass

Thanks for reading!

Carrboro Town Staff Considers Replacing Fidelity St Bike Lanes with Car Parking

Posted on June 24, 2014 by patrick

Carrboro is a progressive town in many ways, but there are a few community characteristics for which the town really stands out- and one of them is Carrboro’s commitment to bicycle infrastructure. Carrboro is currently the only town or city in North Carolina meeting the American Bike League’s “Silver Award” standard and was home to the North Carolina Bike Summit just last year.

That’s why I was quite surprised to peruse Tuesday evening’s Carrboro Board of Aldermen agenda and find the following:

In an effort to better manage the Town’s parking resources, the issue of how to deal with the needs of longer-term parking for business employees arises. Some businesses have requested parking permits from the Town to allow all-day parking for their employees in public lots…The staff has been discussing two options that the Board could exercise in the interim to help with the immediate problem of employee parking. The first option was discussed at the April 15^th meeting and that is for the town to sub-lease out spaces in the Laurel and Weaver Street lots.. A second option that the Board of Aldermen could consider is to use Fidelity Street for permit-only, on-street parking, Monday through Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The street could hold an estimated 100 +/- vehicles. Permits would be issued to Carrboro business owners for use by their employees only.

This is a really bad idea for a lot of reasons that run the gamut from policy substance on bike lanes to policy substance on parking to symbolism to process. Before getting into all of that, though, here is the staff memo statement on the potential impact to the bike lanes on Fidelity St:

Allowing on-street parking on Fidelity Street would impact the bike lanes. Fidelity is a low traffic volume street and cyclists often utilize the traffic lane due to the width of the road and low traffic volume. The width of the street also encourages motorist to speed, therefore on-street parking may act as a traffic calming measure. The Town could paint the bicycle markings in the road, to increase safety. However, on-street parking does affect the Town’s overall number miles of bike lanes. Additional signage would be required to direct parking. The estimated cost of the additional signage is approximately $800.00 and street markings would cost an estimated $5000. This cost would be offset by the fees of the permits to park.

I think this is not stating the impacts clearly enough. What I think this paragraph is trying to say is that the proposal to allow on-street parking on Fidelity Street would REMOVE the bike lanes. The comment “The Town could paint the bicycle markings in the road, to increase safety” seems to suggest that after removing the bike lanes, the Town would paint a few sharrows on the street. As one of my colleagues recently tweeted after Streetsblog recapped a poor decision along these lines in Texas:

To avoid making this a very long post, I’m going to try to provide a quick rundown of a few detail-level reasons why replacing bike lanes with parking on Fidelity Street is likely a mistake, and move on to the two major reasons to try to come up with a better idea.

A Half Dozen of Reasons NOT to Remove Bike Lanes from Fidelity Street

The Town spent years waiting to repave Main Street with last year’s road diet, completing the “missing link” of bike lane coverage in town, linking facilities on Hillsborough Rd, West Poplar Ave, West Main St past the 605 building, Jones Ferry Rd, and yes, Fidelity Street. Now that we’ve linked all these facilities together, let’s not undo the linkage!
Removing bike lanes from Fidelity Street would be in direct conflict with the Two Guiding Principles (see Chapter 5) of the 2009-adopted Carrboro Bike Plan: “Assure safe and convenient bicycle access to all areas of the Town” AND “Promote bic ycles as a viable and attractive means of transportation.” Also not to be missed in this chapter is the plainly-stated Implementation Policy: “Provide bicycle facilities along all collector and arterial streets.”
Issuing parking permits for Fidelity Street only to employees of Carrboro businesses is more or less the removal of an open, all-resident resource (bike lanes) to provide a closed-benefit resource to a mix of residents and non-residents. (leased parking spaces for employees only) The likelihood of the town FILLING Fidelity Street with cars is unlikely when the majority of parking in town will remain free AND be closer to all the employers. Remember, even if only 25% of the spaces are full and the town doesn’t recoup the cost of repaving the street for a several years, the residents still lose their bike lanes.
It’s not clear the town has tried any real Transportation Demand Management (TDM) efforts with their own employees to address this issue; the fact that some of the materials in this item talk about Parks/Rec employees parking in the Weaver Street lot and sometimes even the Greensboro St lot suggest that more could be done here. There are at least 100 parking spaces at Wilson Park, which is about a 3-minute bus ride from the Century Center on the F bus. If the town really wants to promote parking space turnover downtown for local for-profit businesses, then a zero-cost step in the right direction would be encouraging non-law enforcement Town employees who work downtown to park at Wilson Park and take a 3-minute bus ride to and from downtown. I’m not sure how much parking at McDougle School is fully used during the day, but that is another right-on-a-bus-route location where downtown employees could be encouraged to park. Either of these approaches expands capacity downtown without dismantling a part of the bicycle network. Are there any incentives for town employees to carpool or vanpool to Carrboro? Does the town assist employees with bike purchases up to a certain amount? Maybe the town is doing these things already. If they’re not, they should try them.
Best practices in urban parking management literature often encourage curb pricing to promote short-term (1-3 hour) turnover and move long-term parking to decks. Carrboro presently encourages short-term parking in its deck and the Fidelity proposal puts long-term parking on a curb. It would be wise to consider if having our incentives flipped from the best practice position makes sense.
Random parking supply interventions without an overall strategy today are tomorrow’s grandfathered deals that set bad precedent. Let’s avoid doing these things.

But there are two BIG reasons why NOT to remove bike lanes on Fidelity Street and replace it with parking.

Carrboro Needs to Approach “Parking Problems” as “Access Problems”

The worst thing about this proposal is that it suffers from the “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” syndrome. The staff text is built on the assumption that since complaints have been lodged about long-term parking for downtown employees, they must be solved by creating new parking spaces. This orientation is part of the problem. Instead, the questions that need to be asked are:

Can we get some or all of the employees in question downtown without a car? Yes or no?
Can we do things to convert some of the “no” answers in question 1 to “yes” answers?
Can we better manage parking that already exists, downtown or outside of downtown?

These questions will widen the solution set if pursued in earnest.

But here’s the other big reason to keep bike lanes on Fidelity.

The Future Growth of Cycling in the US (including Carrboro) Depends on the Expansion of Facilities That Don’t Require BRAVERY to Ride On

If we really want to expand bicycling in Carrboro, we have to grapple with the fact that the biggest barrier to this outcome is reducing both real and perceived danger to people riding bikes from cars. Roger Geller’s excellent piece on the Four Types of Transportation Cyclists breaks down Portland, Oregon’s population into the following groups by their proclivity to bike for transportation (as opposed to recreation) purposes, and puts 60% of Portland’s population into a category he describes as “Interested But Concerned,” which he describes as follows:

About 60% of the population. These residents are curious about bicycling…They like riding a bicycle, remembering back to their youths, or to the ride they took last summer on the Springwater, or in the BridgePedal, or at Sun River, and they would like to ride more. But, they are afraid to ride. They don’t like the cars speeding down their streets. They get nervous thinking about what would happen to them on a bicycle when a driver runs a red light, or guns their cars around them, or passes too closely and too fast.

Geller goes on to emphasize:

No person should have to be “brave” to ride a bicycle; unfortunately, this is a sentiment commonly expressed to those who regularly ride bicycles by those who do not. There are many cities in modern, industrialized nations around the world with a high bicycle mode split. They have achieved these high levels of bicycle use through adherence to various cycling-promoting policies and practices. But, one thing they share in common is they have substantially removed the element of fear associated with bicycling in an urban environment…In these “fearless” cities septuagenarians are able to ride alongside seven-year-olds safely, comfortably, and with confidence throughout the breadth of the cities[1]. Making bicycling a more widespread and mainstream means of transportation in Portland will require substantially addressing concerns about personal safety.

The path to expanding bicycling as a pleasant and convenient choice in Carrboro (and well, most anywhere) is the path that develops infrastructure that is as safe as possible AND feels as safe as possible to people age 7 through 77. For the “Interested But Concerned” group, bike lanes are significantly better than no bike lanes, and Protected Bike Lanes are better still. Recent research has found Protected Bike Lanes have significantly increased bicycling where they have been built in several US cities.

Carrboro’s upcoming Jones Ferry Rd project will incorporate a Protected Bike Lane under NC 54 as part of the design. We need more facilities like these, not fewer.

Right now both the “Interested But Concerned” and more aggressive “Strong and Fearless” riders (see Geller’s typology) both have a choice that meets their needs on Fidelity – bike lanes for the former and riding in traffic for the latter. Removing the bike lanes damages the bike network for the largest groups of users.

So let’s work on access issues for employees who work in downtown Carrboro, and let’s give them choices to get downtown- to free up parking spaces for paying customers at our local businesses. But let’s not do it at the expense of our award-winning bike network that we’ve worked so hard to build.

Thanks for reading.

Carrboro Open Streets a Fantastic Success, Also Highlights Work to Be Done

Posted on April 25, 2014 by patrick

Palm Sunday weekend was great. The sun was shining, the allergy meds held the pollen in check, and Carrboro’s 2nd Open Streets event was about as picture perfect as it gets. Before I go into details from Carrboro Open Streets, a quick definition:

What Is An Open Streets Event?

Originating in Colombia in South America, and first called Ciclovia, an “Open Streets” event is one that closes city street space normally allocated to cars and gives it to people on foot, bicycle, skateboard, inline skates, a wagon- pretty much any non-motorized vehicle, for several hours at a time. With an emphasis on community, physical fitness, and green transportation, it is common to have bicycle riding and bicycle maintenance instruction, as well as fitness classes from martial arts to zumba, yoga and aerobics.

Within the United States, Open Streets events have taken place pretty much everywhere- New York City, Madison, WI, Minneapolis, Austin, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and smaller communities such as Roanoke, VA, Clearwater, FL, and locally, Durham and Carrboro.

Also, since these events are designed to highlight the benefits of bicycle transportation, I want to share how we got there, which I think illustrates some of the problems that the Open Streets movement is trying to address in the first place.

Getting to Carrboro Open Streets 2014

In the week leading up to Open Streets, DC made it clear that DC wanted not only to ride the balance bike AT Open Streets, but that DC also wanted to use it to GET to Open Streets. Seeing as DC wanted me to bring my bike as well, this presented a non-trivial problem for us. How were we going to cross key streets on the way to the Open Streets zone safely? When I walk and DC ride as a duo, if any sudden danger element intrudes on a situation, such as a distracted driver, I can literally snatch DC off the balance bike if I have to. Fortunately, we have never needed to do this, but when you’re walking your own bike across a street, this is not going to happen as fast, and in such situations, seconds count. DW was also heading to Open Streets, but she would be arriving via her own bike later, so parental tag-teaming was also not an option. There were at least five crossings where cars do more than 25 mph regularly between our house and the Open Streets.

Taking the Bus to Carrboro Open Streets

We settled on a two-part solution. Part 1: Chapel Hill Transit to the rescue! Realizing that the bus could get us pretty close to the Open Streets event, this cut down our set of complicated two-bike crossings from five down to two. DC waited on the sidewalk while I loaded my bike into the rack on the front of the bus, and then I carried DC’s balance bike onboard.

Once we got off the bus, we still needed to cross two streets where cars take corners too fast, because many of Carrboro’s curbs are far too gentle to calm traffic effectively. DC follows directions well, but is not yet skilled enough to cross streets while surveying the environment for safety threats and acting defensively without my help. So we settled on “the Fox and the Chicken” method, based on this old riddle, where I left one bike on the ground, put DC in my left arm and one bike in my right hand, and crossed the street. We then crossed back with just DC in my arms, and then got the second bike and repeated the child-in-one-arm-bike-in-the-other move. Then we went to the next intersection and did it. Again. Without the bus, this would have been 30 street crossings to reach Open Streets. We managed to do only six. I recognize that most people don’t have children in the age bracket that are beyond a stroller and not yet proficient in crossing a street on a bike; however, the fast-turn corners in town present different variations of this problem to everyone, but particularly our senior citizens and small children.

We Made It! Carrboro Open Streets 2014

Having successfully reached Open Streets without getting in a car, we immediately started checking things out. There was an outdoor climbing wall that looked like great fun and already had a line to try. Folks from the Recyclery offered to take our photo together with our bikes. We were told how we could get discounts to the Carrboro Farmers’ Market if we stopped by on our bikes. Another person invited us to a fitness class.

Neighborhood Loop Bike Parade

Someone announced that a kids bike parade/neighborhood loop ride was starting in a few minutes, and we decided that sounded like fun.

Helmet Check Before Kids Bike Parade

I did not get the gentleman in this photo’s name, but he did an excellent job leading the ride from Weaver St down Lindsay, down Poplar, and up Oak. He also gave the kids a short lesson in how to properly tighten a helmet and even adjusted a few helmets that needed tightening to be fitted correctly. Volunteers at each of the intersections watched for cars and stopped them as needed. As short as the loop was, it was still the first time DC and I have ridden on neighborhood streets together, which was a big deal for us.

Bike-On-Bus Practice

After the neighborhood bike loop, we ran into some friends in front of the Chapel Hill Transit “Mobile Mural” bus, which was there to let people practice putting bicycles in and out of the bike rack.

While chatting, DW joined us and then and got to try the bike-on-bus rack, which she reported was very helpful in allowing her to get used to how the bike rack worked without the pressure of wondering if everyone on the bus was waiting for her. CHT Operator Akalema was helpful and encouraging, and gave good advice that CHT operators are “not in there waiting impatiently for you to hurry up. We know how long it takes to get the bike secured, and we want it to fit in well just like you do.”

Bike Decorating and Obstacle Course

Weaver Street Opened

We then took DC by a craft table where there were all sorts of stickers, pipe cleaners, etc. DC’s bike was well-decorated within 5 minutes. DC then tried his hand at an obstacle course that featured riding through cones, up a ramp, and over the rungs in a bumpy rope ladder.

Self-Powered Smoothies

Next we got in line for the crowd-pleasing Blend-Your-Own-Smoothie on a bike stand. We picked strawberries, while others near us in line picked coconut milk, pineapple, and blueberries. I tried to let DC do the blending but the adult bike spacing between the seat and pedals was just a little too long for DC’s gait. I cranked the pedals for about 45 seconds total, stopping every now and then to see how pureed the drink was, until it was indeed, smooth.

Soon after we got lunch at Weaver Street Market and watched the cheerful Bulltown Strutters play up and down East Weaver Street and on the lawn.

Overall Take-aways

Later at home, DW and I were talking about the event, and we both had a few take-away moments from Carrboro Open Streets. DW noted the complete lack of the typical unhealthy food being served at a street festival- no fried dough, no corndogs, etc. Sure, anybody who wanted to get cookies, ice cream, or other fattening food doesn’t have to look far in Carrboro, but with the health/activity focus of the event, we agreed that this made sense. She also appreciated getting to see certain types of fitness classes that she might try another time.

DC was thrilled to “win” a frisbee for completing the bike obstacle course, and reported that getting to honk the horn of the Chapel Hill Transit bus was another favorite moment.

For me, my favorite part was the simple joy of having a significant stretch of pavement in town where I could let our child ride free a bit and generally not worry that DC was one distracted driver away from catastrophe. Thanks to Carrboro Open Streets, DC spent more time than ever on a bike last weekend, and experienced some considerable confidence gains in learning to ride.

The other recurring theme was the number of Carrboro residents I ran into who said in one way or another, “we should do this every week!” While it certainly would be unusual to have many of these activities every Saturday morning (Bike Blender Smoothies in December, anyone?), I think there’s definitely a potential upside to conducting a Carrboro Open Streets event more frequently than once a year.

What Next for Carrboro Open Streets?

To me, Carrboro Open Streets has implications for both transportation and tourism. I’ll start with the latter.

I spoke with Alderperson Randee Haven O’Donnell for a few minutes, and Randee pointed out that some of the folks surveying Carrboro Open Streets participants were finding that non-trivial numbers of people were coming to Open Streets from outside Carrboro, as local tourists from the Triangle region. Now that there’s a hotel in town, maybe we should consider pairing two to four Carrboro Open Streets events to be on the Saturday mornings that follow 2nd Friday Artwalks. This allows a visiting tourist to pair two city culture events in a one-night visit. It also allows visitors to experience the Carrboro Farmers’ Market as well.

On the transportation front, the more I read and the more I use bicycle facilities in our own community and others where cyclists are completely separated from vehicle traffic, the more I realize how critical such facilities are to getting the large portion of the population that would bike if it was safer and FELT safer. I freely admit that adding more facilities like this to downtown is challenging, but I think we should try to identify opportunities downtown (and throughout the town) for more bike/ped-only segments in the transportation network.

See you all at the next Carrboro Open Streets!

North Carolina Carfree Commute Map 2012!

Posted on March 19, 2014 by patrick

Recently I started following @shanedphillips on Twitter after reading a terrific guest column he wrote at Planetizen. Shane lives carfree in Los Angeles and blogs at www.betterinstitutions.com. I’ve added him to my blogroll today- please check out his writing.

He is also hashtagging this month as #marchmapness on Twitter as he is creating carfree commute maps for various states. I asked him about NC, and he whipped this map up in less than a few hours. Thanks, Shane!

For Carrboro, three of the four primary Census Tracts that make up most of town have non-car commute rates of over 20%. If you zoom in you will see that there is a big change in non-car commuters from Census Tract 107.05 to Census Tract 107.06, where non-car travel drops from 24.9% to 6.4%. My first read on this was “well, the F bus goes up North Greensboro St and Hillsborough Rd, but then turns back south on Old Fayetteville Rd- that should explain it.”

But look again- while transit commuting falls from 7.6% to 4.8%, the real drop in non-car commuting comes from the loss of Bike and Pedestrian commuting. In 107.05, over 17% of commuters walk or bike to work.. But in 107.06, only 1.6% of commuters bike, and nobody walks. Also interesting is that if you go one Census Tract *further* away from the employment center of Chapel Hill / Carrboro, bike commuting actually *increases* to 2.6%.

To me, this is an indicator of how powerful proximity to a significant mixed-use destination can be on transportation choices. The Census Tracts closest to downtown Carrboro and Chapel Hill have very significant numbers of people commuting without cars.

What do you see of interest in this great tool that Shane created?

Carrboro #Sneckdown Photos from Previous Storm

Posted on February 9, 2014 by patrick

As we wait for the latest winter weather event to roll in, with possibilities of more heavy snowfall, I wanted to put up some of the #sneckdown photos I took last time. Here’s what I saw. First, let’s look at an aerial photo of the intersection of Davie Rd at West Poplar Avenue. Both roads are one car lane in each direction; Poplar Avenue also has a bike lane in each direction. But look at how much pavement the pedestrian must traverse to reach the sidewalk on the other side of Davie when walking east/west on Poplar. For perspective, the white bars are road marking stop lines; each is about one car width. The green line representing the pedestrian path is probably 4-6 times the width of a car.

Davie at Poplar Sneckdown Aerial

Now let’s see what happens when mother nature drops some snow on this intersection:

Sneckdown Groundview at Davie and Poplar

As you can see, a large swath of this area remains relatively untouched by all but a few car tires. The ability of a limited number cars to take this turn at high speed was prioritized over the safer crossing of pedestrians when this corner was engineered, and if we want to maximize walkability in town, we need to correct mistakes like these.

Filling the curb out through the red triangle in the first photo in this post would be a great step forward. The corner could be rounded a bit if that would help, but we want cars to turn right slowly here, not quickly into the path of pedestrians.

My second #Sneckdown site was a no brainer- this #Sneckdown is actually painted on the street! See below, West Main St at West Weaver St:

Sneckdown Aerial: West Main at West Weaver St

Perhaps the worst offending intersection in town for providing an accelerated corner on one of our critical streets, the area above in red should be paved and raised, because while the actual number of intersections here is low, the vulnerable condition that the white triangle of paint supplies to pedestrians deters greater walking activity at this intersection. Here’s a photo from the storm:

Sneckdown at West Main and West Weaver

Once again, a large berm of snow demonstrates how a pedestrian mid-intersection island would be welcome here as a perceived safety and actual safety improvement. The road diet on Main St has been a big improvement for pedestrians and cyclists on this corridor; getting a refuge island of some type here would be another great step forward.

In the meantime, keep your cameras at the ready if the weather shapes up to be snowy on Tuesday into Wednesday. We could have more #sneckdown photo ops!

A Few Things to Think About When Planning for Downtown ACCESS, Including Parking

Posted on January 18, 2014 by patrick

Carrboro Parking Deck At Sunset from Weaver Street Market Lawn

Carrboro Parking Deck (center, beyond The Station) At Sunset from Weaver Street Market Lawn

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen has pledged to take up downtown parking as one of their major issues to work on in 2014. Before they kick off this effort, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on how to frame this issue in a way that leads to a larger toolbox of potential solutions to get more people and wallets downtown.

Why is Getting Parking Right in Downtown Carrboro Critical?

Carrboro values local businesses and a local living economy. There is a limited amount of land in our downtown core, where most businesses that come to Carrboro want to be – and every surface parking space we add in the downtown core is a lost opportunity to put a more compelling use on it- another local business, more residential units, or a community facility such as a library. If one of our homegrown businesses wants to expand, and we are locking up an increasing amount of land as parking, the likelihood that business will find a bigger space to move into in Downtown Carrboro is reduced. At a certain point, the degree to which we commit to adding parking puts a de facto upper bound on how big a local business sector we can develop in our downtown, and businesses that want to expand may have to move out of Carrboro altogether.

Nobody wants this to be the case. So what can we do?

Strategy #1: Put People First. Stop Defining Parking Spaces As A Goal, Start Defining Parking Spaces as One Way Among MANY to Provide ACCESS for People

There’s a section of the memo the Town Staff prepared for a meeting in May 2013 that I think is particularly well-put together. It states:

In, Parking Evaluation, Evaluating Parking Problems, Solutions, Costs, and Benefits, a publication from the Victoria Transport Institute, the author notes, “A problem correctly defined is a problem half solved.” As the Board continues to refine its overall parking objective–from the continuum of creating a greater number of parking spaces, to encouraging more consumers to the downtown, to reducing the number of existing parking spaces, to removing automobiles from the downtown and thereby reducing the Town’s carbon footprint—it may become easier to frame potential policy changes and LUO text amendments.

Some downtowns that are marginal business locations absolutely require free parking because they have no transit service, no arterial bike lanes and separated bike paths leading to the town center, no sidewalks to adjacent neighborhoods, and low residential densities immediately outside of downtown. They may also be located in communities that are not growing. If foot traffic is absent, then creating greater access for cars from greater distances is often perceived as critical. Frankly, this line of thinking often leads to the downtown being a bit of an old-timey sub-regional tourist destination with a proliferation of antique shops.

But the scenario in the prior paragraph is not Carrboro- in fact, Carrboro, the densest town in North Carolina, is in many ways the antithesis of this. Carrboro is a place people WANT to do business, and the numerous development proposals and construction downtown provide ample evidence this is true. Carrboro has excellent bicycle network connections to downtown, a decent sidewalk network, and a transit network that produces over 1000 weekday boardings in between Cliff’s Meat Market and Carrburrito’s.

The key point here is that if we want local business to thrive, we want more PEOPLE to walk through their doors. A person could arrive at a local business on foot, by bike, by bus, by skateboard, by taxi, or by personal car. We should focus most of all on increasing ACCESS to downtown for PEOPLE (who carry wallets/purses/cash/credit regardless of how they arrive). By doing so, we can help local business thrive and still accommodate additional growth downtown.

Strategy #2: Recognize That Not Every Access Strategy Needs to Be Used by Everyone In Order for Everyone to Experience Better Access

Pick up a Chapel Hill Transit map and you will see that all of the bus service in Carrboro is south of Homestead Rd. Now, so is most of the population of Carrboro, but still- if you live in Lake Hogan Farms and are thinking about downtown access, I think the following is a pretty rational point of view:

“Well, I’d love to get downtown without my car, but I can drive all the way to downtown much faster than I can walk 15 to 30 minutes to a bus stop and ride a bus that will take me another 8 to 10 minutes to get downtown. My time is valuable and driving downtown makes the most sense for where I live.”

But what about the much larger group of people who live within the area served by the CHT bus routes that touch downtown Carrboro? I think this is also a pretty rational point of view:

CHT Bus Heading to Garage by Flickr User bendertj

“Well, I’d love to get downtown without my car, but I’m going to a show at the ArtsCenter that probably ends around 10:00 – 10:30 pm and the last time the F bus leaves downtown is 9:20 pm, so I’ll drive even though I like using the F bus to go to UNC during the week.”

Adding one more parking space somewhere downtown adds storage space for one more car downtown, and adds access for one to perhaps a maximum of four or five other people in most cases.

Running a bus route later provides additional access to hundreds of people who live along the route. While not everyone in those neighborhoods will suddenly stop driving downtown and taking the F bus at night, in a town like Carrboro, more than a few of them will.

And the spaces that were used by those who are now taking the later bus- are freed up for the Lake Hogan Farm resident above who doesn’t have the same opportunity to use the F bus.

The same is true for biking and walking trips to downtown. The more people with cars who sometimes drive to downtown that we can help try walking or biking downtown, the more parking will be available for folks driving in from places where biking, walking, or using transit are not as easy.

Strategy #3: The People Who Drive Downtown Most Often (and Stay the Longest) Represent the Biggest Potential Pool of Parking Spaces to Free Up: Employees

When it comes to freeing up parking spaces in Downtown Carrboro, Annette Stone, the town’s Economic Development Director, recently noted:

“Then there are the unintended consequences of catching people in our enforcement net that we didn’t intend,” Stone said. “We are trying to prevent people from parking, riding and walking out of down town, [but] we are catching our employees that are down there. It just shined a big light in our face of what we have had to deal with.”

While this is a problem, it is also an opportunity, as people who come to downtown five times a week to work are the ones for whom a change in habits would have the most impact in freeing up parking for shoppers, diners, and show or concertgoers. So why might employees drive to downtown Carrboro despite having some alternatives to driving alone to get there? It’s fair to say that restaurants are one of our larger evening job categories. Here are the dinner hours for several downtown restaurants. See a pattern?

Sample of Restaurant Dinner Hours in Downtown Carrboro (Friday/Saturday nights)

ACME: 5:30 – 9:30 pm
Venable: 5:30 – 9:30 pm
Tyler’s: 5:00 -9:00 pm
Elmo’s: morning – 10:00 pm
Carrboro Pizza Oven: lunch – 10:00 pm
Amante Pizza: lunch – 11:00 pm
Glass Half Full 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm

The last CW bus departs downtown Carrboro at 9:05 pm on weeknights, including Fridays. On Saturdays, the last CW leaves downtown at 5:48 pm. For the F bus, the last departure is at 9:20 on weekdays, and the bus does not run on Saturdays. The weekday J route has departures as late as 11:35 pm (GREAT!) but on weekends, the JN route does not touch downtown Carrboro.

The key point is that with most restaurants having shifts end somewhere between 9:15 pm and 10:30 pm, any employee that doesn’t live in a few select spots along the J route who might take the bus to work will not do so- because there is no bus to take them home. The town should work with Chapel Hill Transit to explore how any contemplated night and weekend service improvements that may be coming in the next few years could make sure this employment market is served by any schedule adjustments.

Of course, extending the service span (the total extent of hours covered during the day and evening) of the buses would be used by some diners as well. However, the reason why getting the employees to shift from driving to another mode is so powerful is that employees leave a car parked downtown for 4 to 8 hours at a time, whereas a diner/shopper may park for 1-3 hours and then turn over a parking space to someone else.

Something that can be done even faster is promoting ridesharing to work in downtown Carrboro among downtown employees. The ShareTheRideNC website provides an easy-to-use portal to help workers who may have similar schedules, work near each other, and live near each other- figure out how they could coordinate commuting to work together.

Strategy #4: Consider the Power of Many Small Changes

Finally, I think the most important thing to recognize is that improving access to downtown Carrboro will be most successful with several strategies all helping a little. Let’s consider a downtown employer with 10 employees, all of whom drive to work every day. Generally speaking, that employer will have a much easier time getting all ten of them to find a way to only drive 4 out of 5 days instead of getting two of them to stop driving downtown altogether. Either approach still reduces this group of ten’s collective demand for downtown parking by 20 percent. I doubt that there is any single strategy that will solve the downtown access issue, but a host of strategies that all temper parking demand by 3% here and 6% there can cumulatively have a big impact.

2014 should be an interesting year when it comes to this issue, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Carrboro’s Summer of Bike-Ped Infrastructure, Part 2

Posted on August 14, 2013 by patrick

Earlier in the month I covered some improvements to the local pedestrian grid on Davie Rd and at the intersection of James St and Hillsborough Rd. However, the most high-profile change to the Carrboro street grid this summer is undoubtedly the Main St Road Diet.

Definition: Road Diet

First, what’s a “Road Diet?” Simply put, it’s the reconfiguration of a roadway to remove excess space for cars, and the reassigning of that space for the use of cyclists and/or pedestrians, and in some cases, transit vehicles. Carrboro’s road diet on Main St involved taking a 4-lane road section with no bike lanes down to a 2-lane road with a center turn lane, and bicycle lanes in both directions.

Sample Cross-Sections

Recently I’ve been working as a beta tester for some programmers developing a terrific tool called StreetMix that allows non-engineers to propose street cross-sections for their communities. Here’s the basic before vs after comparison in graphic format. Where you see “Bus Lane” please simply interpret that to be a drive lane in this case. I was just trying to pick different vehicles in the StreetMix program and missed the label.

And here’s what the AFTER configuration is:

Benefits of the West Main Street Road Diet

There are several immediate benefits that this project creates for the community:

Shortens the maximum number of moving vehicle lanes that a pedestrian must traverse to cross Main St. Instead of 44 feet of cars, the pedestrian only needs to cover 33 feet where they need to be on their maximum guard for their safety. This is of particular benefit to children, senior citizens, those with mobility impairments who walk slower than average, and parents pushing strollers.
Fulfills a recommendation of the Carrboro Safe Routes to School action plan and provides safety benefits in a school zone.
Completes a major gap in the bicycle infrastructure network.

I want to place major emphasis on the final point in the list above. For many years, Carrboro has been working slowly and steadily to expand its bike lane and greenway network, with most major street segments in town represented.

The map below shows how effectively Carrboro has been at placing bike lanes on its streets. Green lines represent greenways and off-road bicycle facilities. Orange lines represent wide outside shoulders. Purple lines represent on-street bike lanes. Notice the big gap in the purple network starting at the intersection of West Main and Hillsborough Rd, which then extends south from there past Poplar, Fidelity, and Weaver St, all the way to Jones Ferry Rd.

The road diet turns that grey section to purple and completes several linkages among SIX other roads with existing bike lanes!

Pre-Road-Diet: West Main St Bike Network Gap. Map produced by Town of Chapel Hill

The reason is this is so important is that some of the best research on the propensity of Americans to bicycle for transportation, even in super-bike-friendly cities like Portland, Oregon, indicates that the largest proportion of the populace falls into what Portland refers to as “Interested But Concerned” potential bike riders. These folks would LIKE to bicycle more, but have concerns about personal safety, and generally prefer to bicycle in a space that is clearly identified as being for cyclists first and motorists second. A bike lane meets that criteria for many people, and this road diet fills in a major gap in a network of facilities that address a perceived safety issue for many potential riders.

While I would still like to see us figure out ways to build even more separated bike-only facilities both on and off streets, this is a most welcome improvement to the Carrboro cycling infrastructure.

Congratulations to the town and NCDOT for working together to make this happen! Look below for some photos of the implemented Road Diet.

Pre-Road Diet

Post-Road Diet

Carrboro’s Summer of Bike-Ped Infrastructure, Part 1

Posted on August 7, 2013 by patrick

Summer is construction season, and as we approach the middle of August, there are several projects nearing completion in Carrboro that will make life better for pedestrians and bicyclists, and a few others that have made significant progress. If you haven’t spotted some of this work going on around town, here’s a quick review of two of the notable projects. I will cover others in a subsequent post.

James St / Hillsborough St Intersection Improvements

James St / Hillsborough St Improvements

Perhaps the smallest project, though still very worthwhile, is the curb expansion and installation of an island at the intersection of James St and Hillsborough St. This intersection is a critical location for middle school students walking to McDougle Middle School. Quail Roost Drive is the final segment of many walks to the school since it provides the most direct path to the building via the gate at the end of Quail Roost that opens onto the school’s running track. The new island, expanded curb, and improved crosswalks will calm traffic and reduce turning speeds at this intersection.

In the photo to the right from Google Earth, you can see the cones (representing a potential curb enlargement) that NCDOT put out for most of the last year to gauge motorist, pedestrian, and cyclist behavior prior to the permanent installation. The NCDOT Board awarded the town a Small Construction Funds stipend of $40,000 to complete this improvement, which is part of the town of Carrboro’s Safe Routes to School Action Plan.

I’m really impressed with the way the town and NCDOT worked together on this with the trial of the various configurations of cones to represent the island and curb extension. I hope that Carrboro Planning and Public Works will find a new problem intersection to tackle next.

Davie Rd Sidewalk

Davie Rd Sidewalk In Progress

Another great project that is providing an important missing link to the pedestrian network is the sidewalk presently being built along Davie Rd from Jones Ferry Rd to Fidelity Street. This will be a 5-foot wide sidewalk on the east side of Davie Rd with a storm sewer as part of the design.

According to the American Community Survey 2005 – 2009 five year estimates, the Census Tract in which this sidewalk sits has one of the highest walk-to-work shares of any Census Tract in Orange County, at almost 5%. Another 19% use public transportation to get to work, which means that almost a quarter of the working adults in this area start their journey to work on foot.

Hopefully this piece of sidewalk will be completed along the full length of Davie from Fidelity to Main St in the future. There are a few other projects underway in town that I will cover in Part 2 of this topic.

Email Question From a Reader: Parking Pricing and Equity

Posted on June 15, 2013 by patrick

In response to my last post on why Performance Parking Pricing is better than greater enforcement of 2-hour parking limits, I received an outstanding response from a reader via email. Here are some key excerpts:

Hey Patrick. I have been closely following the discussions about parking in Carrboro. I subscribe to your CityBeautiful21 blog and I have watched all the recent archived video of Board of Aldermen meetings where parking was discussed.

I’m concerned that you have not addressed the impact [of parking pricing] on less wealthy citizens of Carrboro. Since our bus system is not yet full service, particularly during nights and weekends, even folks who live in southern Carrboro often must drive to downtown…Your assumption that text enabled cell phones or smart phones would be available to most potential parkers is part of this issue.

You may have a solution to this problem but I have not heard a solution discussed. One idea that comes to mind would be a parking decal made available (one per in-town residence) to allow free parking, at least for some duration. This has the advantage of favoring Carrboro residents since they already pay for development of parking facilities through their property taxes.

If such a decal would undercut the revenue stream needed to support a system like ParkMe, perhaps it could be reserved for citizens in financial need. Well thanks for listening. I have great hopes that Carrboro will proactively address parking. I understand that this is a key ingredient to making “small town urban” work well.

First, it’s wonderful to get such thoughtful feedback on a post. There are several good points the reader raises here; let’s take them one by one.

Parking Pricing Affects People of Different Incomes in Different Ways

This may seem patently obvious, but it’s worth being clear about it. Lower-income individuals are more impacted by parking pricing than higher-income individuals, especially if they lack alternative ways to access destinations that have priced parking. Therefore, if we are concerned about treating all citizens equally, then it is reasonable and healthy to ask if adding parking pricing to downtown Carrboro can be done in an equitable manner.

Addressing Equity: Are There Ways to Avoid Paying to Park, or to Pay Less to Park?

First, if parking pricing affects lower-income individuals more than higher-income ones, is there a way for a lower-income individual to avoid paying to park while still coming downtown?

Under Performance Parking Pricing, the answer is a big YES. Remember the primary principle of Performance Parking Pricing: charge the LOWEST PRICE POSSIBLE that keeps at least 15% of the parking spaces in a group empty and available, INCLUDING ZERO dollars per unit of time.

For those who wish to avoid parking costs downtown, the first strategy is to drive downtown at a time when demand for lots leaves them more than 15% empty even when unpriced, because at those times, low-demand lots should be FREE. Below is a lot in Chapel Hill that is priced from 8 am to 6 pm on Saturdays, and this is at about 11 am on a Saturday morning. If this lot were in a Performance Parking Pricing system, it would be a prime candidate to lower the hourly rate, perhaps to zero, on Saturdays around lunchtime.

Underused Chapel Hill Parking Lot

But time-shifting of a trip is not the only way to avoid or lower parking costs downtown. Under a Performance Parking Pricing system, it is likely (and appropriate) that parking prices should vary by lot. The lot across the street from the Station and Armadillo Grill will surely be fuller most evenings than the West Weaver St and Town Hall lots. Accordingly, if either of these lots have more than a 15% vacancy rate, they should be unpriced, and someone who wishes to avoid a parking charge simply walks a few extra blocks to their destination.

Addressing Equity: Improving Non-Auto Access to Downtown Carrboro

The reader gets at an additional part of the solution to equity concerns when he states:

“Since our bus system is not yet full service, particularly during nights and weekends, even folks who live in southern Carrboro often must drive to downtown…”

He is getting at another issue that we will need to address to improve access to downtown- the fact that bus service to and from downtown Carrboro at night and on the weekends is limited compared to its weekday, rush hour levels of service. There are a few things we can do to improve this situation that could be the subject of several subsequent blog posts, so I will leave those details to another day. However, Performance Parking Pricing can bring revenue to the table to help pay for extending transit services later and adding route frequency, or to help invest in safer bike routes into the downtown core.

Our local transit service today is very good for a US system in a medium-sized community. However, if we want to take it to the next level of success, getting a wider service span across the day to 10:00 or 11:00 pm on most routes would help a lot. Fortunately, Chapel Hill Transit is already working on this, with the following improvements recommended in the budget for the coming year:

Extended weekday evening trips on the CM, CW, D and J bus routes
Later trips for the F route
Earlier hours for the Saturday JN route
Additional Saturday hours for the CM and CW routes

Another Advantage for Performance Pricing Parking: More Equitable Than Flat-Rate Parking

What is interesting about the equity question and parking is that having flat-rate parking, such as $1/hour regardless of demand for spaces, takes away the two opportunities for equity above that involve time-shifting or choosing a lower-priced lot. This is another reason to figure out how to start charging for parking in Carrboro under a Performance Parking Pricing format rather than a flat-rate, maximum-hour limited format.

Technology and Equity: Can We Make Performance Pricing Parking Work Without Tripping Over the Digital Divide?

Parking Zone Signage in Asheville

Another issue raised by the reader is whether or not a system that relies heavily on phone technology to pay for parking is exclusionary of lower-income individuals who are less likely to own smartphones. This is a good question. Fortunately, many of the systems sold by vendors who produce parking technology have recognized this issue, and have worked to create systems that combine pay-by-smartphone apps with pay-by-text solutions, as well as on-street kiosks offering pay-by-credit card and pay-by-cash choices as well.

The sign at the right from Asheville even has a phone number you can call and speak to someone to facilitate payment in case you do not have a smartphone.

Over the long term, the trend towards all phones being smartphones is also likely to eliminate gaps in access and narrow the digital divide. I just checked with my wireless provider’s website and found that smartphones by Apple, Nokia, Samsung, and Blackberry were all available for less than $1.00 with a two-year contract. The chart below on smartphone market penetration by age and income also seems to support that we are headed this way.

Smartphone Use by Age Group and Income

Looking at this chart, it seems like age is a much more powerful predictor of smartphone usage than income.

Is There a Role for Decals Regarding Parking In Downtown Lots? I Don’t Think So

Finally, the reader asks if having decals for town citizens, either for all citizens or limited by income, that would allow some form of limited free parking– would be an alternative we should consider. My initial assessment is that the other ways of addressing the equity questions I discuss above are more efficient at providing choice and opportunity in allowing low-income individuals to minimize parking costs, and also minimize the management burden and costs of the town.

The experience in other (UCSD) communities (U of FL) that are in or adjacent to college towns also suggest that with many households moving in and out each year, the distribution of decals to residents creates the opportunity for a black market in parking decals to emerge where local residents who can obtain a permit may actually “rent” it to higher-income individuals or to students who would park downtown for longer periods of time than desired, perhaps to commute to campus.

Given the concerns the Aldermen have voiced regarding park and riders coming to downtown after the pricing of Chapel Hill Transit lots begins in August, this decal approach would seem to be in conflict with strategies designed to manage any spillover effects from Carrboro Plaza / Jones Ferry Rd to downtown.

Bottom Line: Equity Is Possible Under Performance Parking Pricing; The Reader Is Right About Improving Alternatives and Making Sure Payment is Accessible

It was a joy to get such thoughtful feedback on a post. It encouraged me to think in greater depth about the issue, and to look at it through a prism that many of us hold dear in Carrboro.

I think it is clear that Performance Parking Pricing could be implemented in Carrboro without having serious equity impacts because of the choices it provides in terms of motorists having access to different lots at different times at different prices, that for the near term, will almost certainly be FREE at least part of the time. If some of the revenue from a Performance Parking System could be dedicated to support transit and bike access to downtown from lower-income neighborhoods, then the equity proposition of this program looks even better.

The reader is absolutely correct that we need more alternatives to get to downtown at more hours so that those who have strong financial incentives to avoid parking costs have choices available to them, and that while smartphone technology is great, we need to ensure that there are other ways to pay for parking that don’t require you to own an expensive, latest-model phone. I commend him for putting this topic on the table!

In closing, while I certainly encourage anyone to join the discussion in the comments, I know that others may wish to submit comments by email. To make that easier, and to avoid spam for me and you, I’ve set up a contact form as part of the site, now available here.

CityBeautiful21

Urban Planning for the 21st Century

Category Archives: Biking