After years of complaints and delays from a small group of homeowners who are wealthier and whiter than the town of Carrboro at large, in the Spring of 2023, the Town of Carrboro created a community outreach process to seek input in a more scientific way than who speaks at a podium in Town Hall.
76% of over 1,700 respondents say that creating more trails is “Very Important.”
93% of those taking the survey report using the Bolin Creek corridor
66% of Respondents prefer the Creekside Trail Alignment from the 2009 Master plan; only 34% support the other two alignments (at least one of which, the rail corridor- is completely unviable) combined
Here are some screenshots related to those points:
These findings largely track what has been found in the Town’s most scientific public opinion survey, its bi-annual Commnuity Survey, conducted most recently in 2021. Roughly 70% of the town in that survey lists expanding the greenway network as a top priority, including those in low-income and minority Census Tracts. Our Town has spent a lot of time talking about Racial Equity and Climate Action in the past year. Few things could be more relevant to addressing both than moving ahead with the trail design and construction along the Creekside Alignment.
Near Neighbors Support the Creekside Alignment
While greenway opponents would have you believe it’s not so, there are plenty of people who live near Bolin Creek who would celebrate having a greenway, and are already thinking about how they would use it. Given the vociferousness of anti-housing and anti-greenway groups in the area, it’s not surprising that some folks from that part of town would not engage their angry neighbors, but feel safer putting their comments in a survey. Here are just a few of those comments.
What Moving Forward Means – An Alignment and Funding
The Town is likely to hear lots of podium comments on Tuesday night. I fully expect them to include some angry voices and demographics that are highly unrepresentative of the Town at large.
However, given these results, it’s time to stop kowtowing to the loudest voices in town, and approve that the Creekside alignment be moved forward to final design as fast as possible, and that funding for consulting firms to do that work should be put in the FY 2025 budget if funding cannot be identified in the remainder of FY 2024, which ends on June 30, 2024.
Now that we’re several weeks into election season, we’re getting a clearer picture of the priorities of each of the Carrboro Town Council candidates.
What’s also clear is that while there are five candidates running, there are functionally two groups of candidates aligned around two different sets of priorities.
The first group includes incumbent Town Councilor Elizar Posada, former Planning Board chair Catherine Fray, and the former owner of Back Alley Bikes, Jason Merrill. Merrill also previously served on the Transportation Board when he lived in Chapel Hill. They have named their slate “Carrboro Better Together.”
The second group includes legal firm Client Relationship Executive and Triangle Red Cross Board Member April Mills and former UNC-Chapel Hill Systems Analyst and Meals on Wheels volunteer Stephanie Wade. While they have not named their slate (to my knowledge) they are campaigning together with joint advertising and canvassing. For this article, I will refer to them as “The Newcomers” since this appears to be their first time running or seeking to join a Town Board.
All of the candidates running are personally and professionally accomplished, and demonstrate a high level of engagement in the campaign.
How to Evaluate Candidates In a Campaign
The longer I follow politics at any level, the less interested I am in someone’s experience, and the more interested I am in how a candidate defines and understands various issues and ultimately, how they will vote on key issues before the community.
Fortunately, all the campaigns have provided a lot of information in this regard through published platforms, social media, and questions answered in public forums. We’ll get to that shortly. But first, what are the priorities of Carrboro residents?
The 2021 Carrboro Community Survey: What People All Over Town Want
Carrboro surveys its residents every few years using a telephone and mail survey, with scientific demographic sampling and follow-up designed to ensure that those responding to the survey are representative of the town, which is:
“Based on the sum of their top two choices, the transportation services that residents thought were most important were: 1) ease of walking in Carrboro, 2) availability of greenways/multi-use paths, and 3) ease of driving in Carrboro.”
“The most important aspect of housing to Carrboro residents was the availability of housing options by price.”
and, in the body of the full report:
“Today, community leaders have limited resources which need to be targeted to activities that are of the most benefit to their citizens. Two of the most important criteria for decision making are (1) to target resources toward services of the highest importance to citizens; and (2) to target resources toward those services where citizens are the least satisfied.”
Only 26% of Carrboro residents are satisfied with the price points of housing in Town. The survey recommends this be the #1 issue that the Town seeks to address.
The Candidates On Two Timely Topics In Town: Affordable Housing and the Bolin Creek Greenway
On housing, as on many issues, Catherine Fray brings their planning board experience to offer precise policy actions they would support: (from frayforcarrboro.com/platform/)
And at the NEXT/IFC/CEF/EMPOWERment candidate forum, a question was asked if candidates would support the 34 affordable housing units proposed for town-owned land on Pathway Drive. The forum was recorded (links go to YouTube comments of the candidates) and here is the summary portion of Fray’s detailed answer:
Let’s unpack this a bit. To recap, Fray, Posada, and Merrill support building affordable housing on the Pathway Site. All three of them are focused on the broad affordability challenge in the community, and how it makes it hard for people across the income spectrum to remain in Carrboro.
Mills would not commit to nor outright oppose affordable housing on the site, and says that the [storm]”water and how it impacts others is just as important.” There is no development plan for the Pathway Site yet; it is early in a screening process to see what the site can accommodate in terms of housing while also meeting environmental rules. It’s entirely possible that a site plan can be created that adds no net new stormwater to the neighborhoods beyond the site. Building taller and more densely on some of the land may leave more of the land available for drainage. But Mills also raises the prospect of aesthetic criteria, putting a taller building on less land strategy that could help on stormwater in conflict with her “match the neighborhood” criterion. While not saying an outright “no,” Mills is making it clear that her priority is the perceived concerns of the neighbors (stormwater, aesthetics) and that housing for low-income residents is important, but perhaps a lower priority. (as another indicator, see Mills’ door hanger below, which mentions stormwater but not affordability)
Stephanie Wade did not attend the forum above, but has made it clear through instagram that she opposes affordable housing on Pathway Drive, and perhaps any housing anywhere else in town.
There are several policy implications of this post. Wade stated:
“One of the things I am very passionate about is tackling the affordable housing problems in Carrboro that come from being an area that has high demand.”
Then:
“Adding homes, apartments and other dwellings isn’t the answer.”
Interestingly, Wade later edited the post and the italicized sentence was removed. Here’s the current post:
Even if one ignores the deleted “no adding homes” comment, Wade’s remaining prescriptions face potentially insurmountable challenges for legal, functional and financial reasons. Those reasons are:
Rent control is illegal in NC, and there is no legislative lever that the Town Council can pull on existing housing to prevent any landlord, corporate or local, from raising the rent by a certain amount.
Apartment construction is THE primary method that created MOST of the affordable housing built in the area, particularly in the last ten years. That includes non-profit development projects like Greenfield Commons in Chapel Hill and Perry Place on the Chapel Hill/Carrboro town line. It also includes Shelton Station, built by for-profit developer Belmont Sayre, which includes 20 affordable and 74 market rate apartments. Another for-profit developer built The Landing at Winmore, where Wade had just visited prior to posting. It’s going to be hard to build affordable housing for individuals below the Area Median Income (AMI) without building apartments.
3. Our Transit funds are fully committed for some time. Chapel Hill Transit, GoTriangle and Orange Public Transportation have all made investments in recent years. The planned Hillsborough Train Station has funding reserved in our county transit plan. Between these investments and construction funds reserved for the crucial North-South Bus Rapid Transit project in Chapel Hill, nearly every transit dollar in the county is already committed for the next several years, perhaps as far out as 2030. When Wade says that we must add more transit before adding any more housing, she is inherently implying either:
a)the Town should support a multi-year-long development moratorium on all housing until new bus service arrives, which could be as late as 2030 b)the Town should raise taxes to pay for more public transportation
As a final piece of information to assess how Mills and Wade prioritize affordable housing, I’ve taken a picture of their door hanger literature below. Neither mentions affordable housing in their priorities, despite it being the #1 issue in the Town Survey. Public transportation is also not mentioned on either door hanger.
The Candidates ON TRANSPORTATION & THE BOLIN CREEK GREENWAY
The NEXT/IFC/CEF/EMPOWERment Forum asked if the Town Council should complete the Bolin Creek greenway sections 3 and 4. Here are key excerpts of the answers of the candidates who attended. We’ll start with The Newcomers this time.
While Stephanie Wade did not attend this forum, she recently made the statement below on social media that mirrors Mills’ statement about greenways not being allowed in already-cleared-of-trees OWASA easements.
It’s possible that Mills and Wade have been given misinformation here, as MOST of the greenways in both Chapel Hill and Carrboro have been built in OWASA easements, which Ryan Byars has documented (with photos!) here.
Here’s what the Carrboro Better Together slate had to say on the issue.
The Crystallization of the Election in One Comment
While Merrill was only speaking about the greenway in the comment above, he touched upon the primary axis around which every other issue in the campaign revolves – should public policy decisions should be viewed primarily through the eyes of wealthy homeowners who live near proposed public investments, or should we take a broader view while also parsing those concerns?
Here’s a map showing the median income of the town, the proposed Bolin Creek Greenway Phases 3 and 4, and the proposed Pathway Drive affordable housing site. It’s impossible to miss how the greenway would connect lower-income parts of the community to the south to Chapel Hill High School, Smith Middle School, and Seawell Elementary at the north end of the greenway alignment.
On these two key issues, the Carrboro Better Together slate and the Newcomers slate have clearly different priorities.
The Carrboro Better Together candidates will support the completion of public investments in the Bolin Creek Greenway along the creekside alignment and affordable housing on town-owned land on Pathway Drive. Both will connect residents across the income spectrum to schools, parks, and each other.
The Newcomer candidates, while being less definitive on both projects, are more likely to oppose both the construction of affordable housing on Pathway Drive, and to oppose the creekside alignment while supporting other alignment plans that are promoted by anti-greenway groups such as the Friends of Bolin Creek. The Newcomers’ objection to both is couched in terms of stormwater and environmental management, even though there are plenty of local examples of technical best practies on both of these fronts. (Shelton Station apartments detains stormwater underground to prevent flooding; the Bolin Creek Greenway in Chapel Hill used multiple techniques that have stabilized the creekbed and prevented erosion.)
Does Where We Stand Ultimately Depend Upon Where We Sit?
As we consider these five candidates, it is also worth knowing that the Newcomer candidates both live in census tracts on the north side of town that both have median incomes over $100,000 per year, while the Carrboro Better Together candidates all live in the Census Tract that had a median income of $36,059 in the map above.
So it’s not surprising that the Carrboro Better Together candidates might hear more about housing cost challenges from their neighbors, and that the Newcomers might hear more from their neighbors about stormwater, since their financial basic needs are more likely to be met.
When any of these five candidates say “this is what I’m hearing,” we should taken them at their word.
What is most interesting about these two sets of platforms is that while it’s clear that the Newcomers’ platform is likely to block substantial priorities of the Carrboro Better Together slate, the reverse is not necessarily true. While the Newcomers are talking about stormwater as a problem, Catherine Fray from the Carrboro Better Together slate is as well, and has been identifying actionable strategies the Town can take to work on the stormwater issue, including using the stormwater utility that the Town established in 2017. Watch them break the issue down here in their closing statement from the forum:
The Town Survey, The Comprehensive Plan, The Candidates and The Future
In 2023, we have a very good idea of what is important to Carrboro residents at a large scale thanks to the 2021 Town Survey, and also the Carrboro Connects Comprehensive Plan process, which involved over 1,600 residents in Town and won an award for inclusive engagement.
The Carrboro Connects plan declares its two foundational pillars to be Racial Equity and Climate Action. Addressing these issues in 2023 largely requires TAKING actions and building things to change the course of an inequitable and climate-change-accelerating status quo.
The Carrboro Better Together slate largely supports the direction set by Carrboro Connects plan, and would TAKE action to build low-to-zero-carbon transportation choices like the Bolin Creek Greenway, and TAKE racial equity steps forward like developing affordable housing on Town-owned land, including Pathway Drive.
The Newcomers are less precise in their policy preferences, and express skepticism or outright opposition to the completing the Bolin Creek Greenway or building affordable housing on Pathway Drive. On these issues, the primary policy approach of the Newcomers would be the PREVENTION of actions, particularly construction (of greenways or homes) in the wealthiest part of Carrboro, and perhaps other parts of town as well.
Carrboro’s future will hinge on which of these two directions the electorate chooses in November.
On Friday, March 24th, the Town of Carrboro released a Scope of Work (Town Scope) for the Bolin Creek Greenway (BCG) Public Input Process that several Carrboro residents, myself included, believe significantly ignores not only the will of the community, but also the direction and guidance of the majority of the Town Council at their February 14th work session.
As quick examples, on February 14th, several Carrboro Town Council members:
stressed the importance of reaching out to renters in this process.
mentioned interest in using a lottery approach like Raleigh or other methods to get statistically valid data from diverse populations
There is no mention of renters in the Town Scope, nor is there mention of the 2021 Town Survey which has statistically significant response rates due to its rigorous sampling approach. For more coverage of what is NOT in the scope, please read this coverage at Triangle Blog Blog. While the Town Scope is disappointing for what it leaves out, several items in the Town Scope will not help the town reach its goals, and are more likely to produce delays.
The Town Scope states as its purpose: “The goal is to engage the community in determining its vision and expectations for consideration of Phases 3 and 4 of the Bolin Creek Greenway.”
That is not what the community nor, in our opinion, the Town Council wants to see out of this process.
The community is not looking to develop a vision, or “determine expectations to consider” something. We are looking for the Town Council to vote to select an alignment for the Bolin Creek Greenway, and to start the process of building it as expeditiously as possible.
Seeing this fundamental misunderstanding of what the public and Council majority is seeking based on the content of the February 14th work session, we do not have any suggested edits for the Town Scope. Instead, we have drafted an entirely new one. We recommend that this new Community Scope should be used as a replacement for the Town’s draft, or at least as a starting point for new edits before a Scope of Work is finalized.
The Town Scope was drafted over six weeks. This alternate Scope of Work (Community Scope) was drafted in approximately 8 hours on March 25th and 26th.
The Community Scope is built on the following principles:
That a clear schedule, and a project management structure that reflects urgency and focus is respectful of the public’s time. Studies that have no defined schedule and do not identify decision points are wasteful of the public’s time, favor the time-privileged, and are by their nature inequitable.
That the opinions of town residents at large, and not the priorities of the most “plugged-in” citizens is what should guide Town Council decision making. The Community Scope is designed to reach out to residents instead of waiting for them to opt in, and aims to have participation match town demographics. Self-selective public participation in Carrboro has proven time and again to attract participation from wealthy residents, older residents, white residents and homeowners out of proportion with their presence in the Town population.
That there is more than enough existing data, analysis and other technical information available about the BCG, greenways, creeks, and other facilities in Chapel Hill and Carrboro to make a decisionabout which alignment to select, and to make a decision to proceed with design.
Many of the items raised in the Town Scope that involve additional analyses, engaging property owners, and other technical activities are unusual for a public involvement exercise. Checking on the current use of the rail corridor isn’t helping us evaluate the three alternatives in the 2009 plan; all that does is re-open the alternatives process to delay a decision by trying to add new choices to the mix.
As for reviewing regulations to see if rules may prohibit old designs from proceeding, this is inappropriate. The whole point of final design of any facility is to complete the design WITHIN various regulatory frameworks, with the National Environmental Policy Act as a tool to help the design of the facility ADAPT as it moves towards construction to be in harmony with local, state and federal regulations. Reviewing regulations and regulatory change without having a design team on hand to attempt to adjust the design of a facility to meet any new regulatory requirements is stacking the deck in favor of project cancellation and against thoughtful mitigation of any impacts that may arise
Below are links that Town Council, staff and community members can use to view the proposed scope and a recommended schedule associated with the scope of work.
This Community Scope can surely be improved – it was written very quickly! That said, we believe it represents an accurate representation of the type of actions that residents are looking for the Town to undertake, and we offer it as a resource for discussion as the Town Council works to refine their scope of work and begin this process.
There are lots of great reasons to complete the Phase 3 and 4 segments of the Bolin Creek Greenway through Carrboro that include a wide variety of environmental benefits. But equally important are the equity benefits that the community will receive from completing the greenway.
Connecting Students to Public Schools
There are three Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools that are close to the proposed Phase 3 and 4 segments of the Bolin Creek Greenway: Seawell Elementary School, Smith Middle School, and Chapel Hill High School.
Really? Where?
The image below shows proximate the northern portion of the greenway would be to the three schools. Connecting the greenway to each of them would be easy to do as part of the Phase 3 and 4 project. The Chapel Hill High School-Homestead Rd path already connects neighborhoods north of Homestead Rd to Chapel Hill High School near the tennis courts.
Talking Equity: The Differences Between Household Income Along the Proposed Greenway and School Demographics at Seawell, Smith, and CHHS
The households living in the Census Block Groups immediately adjacent to the proposed phase 3 and phase 4 segments of the Bolin Creek Greenway have only 3% of residents living in poverty, and have median incomes over $123,000 per year. (well above the median income for Chapel Hill/Carrboro of roughly $77,000 per year) The map below shows the relative income of Census Block groups near Phase 3 and 4, labeled as “Bolin Creek Missing Greenway.”
However, data gathered by US News shows that the percentages of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch (strongly correlated with household poverty) at the three schools are notably higher:
Seawell Elementary: 26% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch
Smith Middle School: 23% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch
Chapel Hill High School: 16% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch
Here are individual median incomes identified for some of the Census Block Groups near the proposed Greenway. In each case, the median household income of the block group is identified in a green box.
South of Estes Drive and East of North Greensboro Street
The Census Block Group immediately south of Estes drive and East of North Greensboro Street has the lowest median household income near the proposed greenway. This area include the Estes Park apartments and the 605 Oak Avenue public housing community.
Immediately East of the University Railroad and West of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd in Chapel Hill
This Census Block Group has a median income of roughly $72,000 per year, which is closer to (but still below) the median income in the area.
North of Estes Drive and Surrounding the Proposed Greenway Alignment
The Census Block that largely surrounds the proposed greenway on both sides has a median income of over $123,000 per year.
The Attendance Zones for These Schools Serve Low-Income Neighborhoods in both Carrboro and Chapel Hill
Here are the Smith Middle School attendance zones laid on top of the income map and the proposed greenway alignment. What becomes pretty obvious is that the SCHOOLS are at the north end of proposed Bolin Creek Greenway and many of the neighborhoods with lower and middle income residents are at the south end.
Completing this portion of the greenway (and connecting the southern end to Umstead Park in Chapel Hill!) would really provide a safe, healthy, environmentally friendly transportation choice for students at all three schools, though particularly middle school and high school students, who are more likely to take a longer trip by foot or bike.
Given that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools are facing unprecedented challenges in hiring school bus drivers to bring children to school, and that low-income families are less likely to have a car available to drive a child to school if their bus doesn’t show up, completing the Bolin Creek Greenway is more than a way to create emission-free, environmentally-friendly trips between neighborhoods – it’s a way to help make access to education more equitable, resilient and reliable for everyone.
The Carrboro Linear Parks Project has brought significant attention to the need to complete the Bolin Creek Greenway (BCG) in recent months, and it appears that the Town Council may take up a process to re-start the design and engineering of the BCG in 2023.
Given this development, and that one of the founding pillars of the Carrboro Connects plan is Racial Equity, I spent two evenings this week re-watching the last two major public meetings about the BCG from 2016, when the Chapel Hill High School-Homestead Path portion of the BCG was a hot topic in town.
A recent study in greater Boston, where white residents make up 80% of the population, found that over 95% of speakers at public meetings were white. How representative of Carrboro were the speakers at the last two BCG meetings? While I had impressions of those meetings in my mind, as I attended and spoke at both, I wanted to get hard data.
A Target for Representative Input: Carrboro Town Profile Some quick Carrboro stats from the 2020 Decennial Census and 2021 American Community Survey 5-Year estimates for the Carrboro population:
Renting/Owning a Home ▪ 58% of Carrboro residents are renters ▪ 42% are homeowners
Race/Ethnicity ▪ 12.8% of Carrboro residents are Hispanic/Latino ▪ 10.0% of Carrboro residents are Black ▪ 62.2% of Carrboro residents are White ▪ 8.8% of Carrboro residents are Asian ▪ Approximately 6% of Carrboro residents are multi-racial
Income (Earnings in Last 12 Months, 2021) ▪ 6% of Carrboro residents earned less than $25,000 ▪ 37.2% earned $25,000 to $49,999 ▪ 19.2% earned $50,000 to $74,999 ▪ 13.2% earned $75,000 to $99,999 24.2% earned $100,000 or more
Age ▪ 21% of Carrboro residents are age 19 or younger ▪ 24.5% are age 20 to 29 ▪ 16.1% are age 30 to 39 ▪ 11.8% are age 40 to 49 ▪ 11.5% are age 50 to 59 ▪ 8% are age 60 to 69 ▪ 7.1% are 70 and up
Looking at these stats, a representative set of speakers at a Town Council podium would be mostly renters, about 4 out of 10 would be non-white, primarily under age 40, and 60% would earn less than $75,000. What did I find?
Like Boston, Public Commenters in the Last Two Carrboro BCG Meetings Were Almost Entirely Wealthy Older White People
Example 1: BCG Public Comment Stats from May 10th, 2016
▪ All 16 of the speakers were white. I was able to confirm that 14 of the 16 identified as Non-Hispanic or Latino White on their voter registration. ▪ Using Anywho.com and Spokeo.com, I was able to get ages for all but one speaker. The average age of the speakers was 54, the median age was 57, and other than one 17- year-old, the youngest speaker was 41. 10 of the 16 speakers were over age 50. ▪ Using voter address data and the Orange County Land Records system, I learned that 100% of speakers were homeowners, and none were renters. ▪ Using Zillow.com and home value as a proxy for income/wealth, I learned that the median home value in 2022 for speakers is $635,700. Assuming a household could afford a $63,500 down payment, they would then need an annual household income of over $154,000 to buy such a home. ▪ Video documentation of this meeting is available here – Carrboro Granicus 5-10-2016 Town Council Meeting
Example 2: BCG Public Comment Stats from May 17th, 2016
▪ 7 of the 8 speakers were white, one identified as Latino in their voter registration. ▪ The average age of the speakers was again 54, the median age was 52, and the youngest speaker was 42. ▪ Again, 100% of speakers were homeowners, and none were renters. ▪ The median home value in 2022 for these 8 speakers is $662,650. ▪ Video documentation of this meeting is available here – Carrboro Granicus 5-17-2016Town Council Meeting
Three Interesting Tidbits
TIDBIT 1: The most fascinating finding for me in this exercise was that in both meetings, the person who lived in the most expensive house took the most time speaking at the podium!
No, I’m not kidding. In the May 10th meeting, it was a homeowner in a house currently valued at $1.07 million who spoke the longest, and on May 17th, the longest speaker spoke at the podium for 19 painful minutes. They have since moved away, but the house they lived in is presently valued at $1.8 million.
TIDBIT 2: Like in NCAA sports, there is apparently a NIMBY Transfer Portal! The lengthiest anti-greenway speaker at the May 10th meeting apparently got a great NIL deal or something, and moved out to La Quinta, CA, where they promptly joined La Quinta Residents for Responsible Development and recently killed a proposed wave pool resort near their home.
TIDBIT 3: In both meetings, multiple members of a single household spoke. On May 10th, 2016, there were two sets of adults who lived in the same home who spoke, as well as one mother/son pair who spoke. On May 17th, there was another pair of adults living in the same home who spoke. These multi-household-member-with-similar-opinion comments further narrow an already limited demographic pool.
Carrboro Must Stop Holding Public Comment Sessions Like This For a town that says it is making Racial Equity a foundational element of its decisionmaking going forward, it’s hard to think of a reason that this type of engagement process should continue at all.
It took me about 8 hours to document these two meetings and research the characteristics of the participants. While I am sure a labor-intensive effort could turn up meetings prior to the very intentional Carrboro Connects process that had slightly more representative socio-demographic voices from the town speaking at a podium, the truth is what is documented above is much more the status quo norm than any unusual occurrence.
People shouldn’t have to sit in a specific room at a certain time of day, and wait for hours to speak for 1-2 minutes in order for their input to matter. This is unfair to parents who put small children to bed in the early evening, people who work second shift, and those who depend on transit services that shut off for the night before a lengthy meeting may end.
People shouldn’t have to be subjected to an intimidating environment and be heckled when they speak a view not shared by others in the audience. I was yelled at while speaking in both of my comments, which you can see in the videos. Others I know who supported the CHHS path did not attend the second meeting because of the environment in the first meeting. We can’t let that happen the next time we discuss the BCG.
A more equitable public input process going forward might include a time period (one week?) prior to a Town Council decision point for residents to submit their demographics and videos or voice recordings up to 1 minute in length from their mobile phones, and then allow town staff to curate a representative set of remarks that reflects the broader community, and not just a few voices with a lot of free time, and lasts no longer than 10 minutes in a meeting setting.
The staff would also spend time presenting opinion data from larger efforts with higher data validity, like the 2021 Carrboro Community survey and the Carrboro Connects planning process.
Sharing data and insights from events out in the community that were attended by Town staff would also be valuable.
Stopping Doing the Wrong Things Is Still Progress Even If The Right Thing Isn’t Entirely Clear Yet Recently our neighbor Chapel Hill has had some pretty good breakthroughs under the facilitation of Canadian planner Jennifer Keesmat. With that in mind, I’d like to share a slide from former Vancouver chief planner Brent Toderian that I like.
I am sure that the question of “what does equitable engagement that supports racial equity look like in Carrboro?” will not be easy to answer, and that there will be some trial and error along the way.
But we know public comment as currently practiced in Town Council meetings in Carrboro is broken and built for privilege, just as it is in most other communities that use podium comments to shape decisions. Before we open another public discussion on the BCG, or any other important community issue, let’s find a way to eliminate or minimize the importance of podium comments in Town Council meetings, and jump from item #1 to item #4 in the slide above.
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On Saturday, August 27th, Carrboro Town staff hosted a tour of what will be Phase 1 of the Carrboro portion of the Morgan Creek Greenway.
Morgan Creek Greenway Overview
The Morgan Creek Greenway is a regional greenway connection across southern Chapel Hill and Carrboro with many years of planning behind it. Our family has ridden on the existing portion of the greenway for years and it is delightful. Here is a “sights and sounds” video I made in 2016. Notice what a safe and low-stress riding environment it is for children. (and people of all ages and cycling abilities)
The map below shows the existing sections of the Morgan Creek Greenway, which connects to Merritt’s Pasture, and the Fan Branch Trail, which connects the Morgan Creek Greenway to Southern Village. The red box near Smith Level Rd indicates where Phase 1 of the Carrboro portion of the greenway will be built.
Existing Morgan Creek Greenway in Purple, Carrboro Phase 1 in Red Box
The Carrboro Portion of the Morgan Creek Greenway
The Town put together a Morgan Creek Greenway Conceptual Master Plan Report(PDF) in 2010 to outline the possibilities of what full implementation could look like. The original master plan alignment is shown below. Again, the red box indicates Phase 1.
Morgan Creek Greenway Master Plan, Phase 1 in Red Box
Current Phase 1 Design Features
The greenway is currently at 30% design. This is a portion of the engineering process when many major things have been figured out, but there is still an opportunity for some adjustments to be made to the path of the greenway.
The current design proposes the following:
A sidewalk from Smith Level Road and public works drive leading from the street down to the greenway
The greenway proceeding on town property outside of the Public Works facility fence along the north side of the creek
Greenway will run to the left of the fence outside of Carrboro Public Works
A sidewalk access into the cul-de-sac at the bottom of Abbey Lane by Canterbury townhomes and another access point further up on Abbey Lane directly across from Friar Lane
A bridge (in maroon, at right below) over the small creek that passes under Public Works Drive
A bridge (in maroon, at left below) crossing Morgan Creek to the south side of the creek and a turnaround where the future Phase 2 section of the greenway will begin
Carrboro Portion of Morgan Creek Greenway: Phase 1
Design Analysis and Recommendations for Improvement in the Next Design Milestone
Overall, there’s a lot to like about this design. A bridge under Smith Level Road to the Chapel Hill section ensures this will be a Level of Traffic Stress 1 facility, suitable for children and senior citizens. This is the gold standard of bicycling safety and comfort in terms of protection from motor vehicles. The two different access points to Abbey Lane ensure that nobody has to significantly backtrack out of the neighborhood to go east or west when the full trail is built out.
The most important opportunity for improvement in this design is to include lighting as part of the trail.
The Frances Shetley bikeway in Carrboro is heavily used and beloved by neighbors, and one of the key reasons is that it has excellent lighting that makes it useful after dark. (see left side of trail picture below) There are even new lighting types that reduce or completely eliminate upward light pollution by ensuring the light emitted only goes down. The International Dark Sky association maintains a list of compliant lights that can make the Morgan Creek Greenway as useful as possible while meeting dark sky goals.
For the 60% and final design of this greenway, the town should ask the engineering team to incorporate dark-sky compliant lighting for the trail into the design.
Shetley Greenway with Lights Near Carrboro Elementary School
Improving Public Process: Notify Everyone
Finally, one place where the Town continues to use an outdated practice is to notify near neighborhoods of a project meeting, but not the broader community. I only learned about this event because we own property within a certain number of feet of the project location. But this is supposed to be a REGIONAL bike-ped project that is part of a multi-town plan in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
There’s no reason this project and commenting on how to improve it should be a privilege of nearby neighbors, and not the whole town, and even our neighbors in Chapel Hill who might use it as well. Numerous studies have shown how notifying homeowners in near neighborhoods around projects ultimately biases processes towards favoring participation among older, wealthier and whiter participants. And frankly, while the crowd of nearly 50 who attended were largely enthusiastic about the trail, and that was great to see – they also largely fit the narrow demographics of this outdated notification method. Given that 33% to 38% of the population of the Census tracts that would be served by the trail are home to non-white residents, we probably could have done better at reaching those residents.
Let’s work to broaden the conversation from here on out, shall we?
Did you know that NCDOT is considering removing the traffic signal at the intersection of Estes Drive and North Greensboro St in Carrboro?
There will be a drop-in meeting Monday, November 14th at from 4 to 7 pm in the Carrboro Town Hall Board Room.
Study Area for Potential Roundabout
Roundabouts have significant safety benefits as their design reduces 32 potential conflict points for cars to only 8, and 24 conflicts down to 8 as well for pedestrians- when compared to a standard 4-way intersection.
This intersection also provides a link to the Frances Shetley Greenway, so hopefully there will be an excellent bicycle interface between the two facilities. Make sure to stop by Town Hall on Nov 14th!
I took a ride on my bike recently to check out construction progress on the Bolin Creek Greenway extension under MLK Blvd in Chapel Hill. In the late afternoon, it was 93 degrees with a heat index of 97, and biking along West Main St and North Greensboro St was pretty uncomfortable, heatwise. Fortunately, I got two big doses of shade as I rode on both the Frances Shetley Greenway and the Wilson Park Multi-Use Path during my trip.
The Shetley greenway, a facility that has been in place for more than twenty years, has a tree canopy covering the path from both sides.
Shetley Greenway Shade Near Carrboro Elementary School
Here’s the view of the Wilson Park Multi-Use path, looking down towards Estes Drive, riding from Wilson Park. There’s more light here, as this path has been in place less than ten years. Still, the path has more shade than sunlight for most of its length.
Wilson Park Multi-Use Path Headed Towards Estes Drive
Finally, in Chapel Hill, I reached the latest phase of the Bolin Creek Greenway that is presently under construction between MLK and Umstead Park. Here are two photos of segments of the trail that are already finished:
Bolin Creek Trail Extension Summer 2016 – picture 1
Bolin Creek Trail Extension Summer 2016 – picture 2
In both of these photos, even with construction finished recently, there is significant shade in both locations and trees arching over the path. If you’re looking for a safe place to get some exercise with friends and family this summer, and want to beat the heat a bit, check the finished greenways out and enjoy!
