Central Carrboro Traffic Went DOWN from 1997 to 2013

Posted on September 3, 2015 by patrick

More People are Riding Buses, Biking and Walking in Carrboro

Did you know that many traffic counts in Carrboro were lower in 2013 than in 1997? Yep. In 1997, Carrboro was home to roughly 15,400 people. By 2013, the Census reported that number as closer to 20,800.

Despite adding over 5,000 residents and seeing downtown job growth, there were fewer cars on the streets all over central Carrboro in 2013 than there were 16 years earlier!

You can see for yourself by checking NCDOT’s traffic count maps at the end of this post. But let’s take a look at all the counts that went down, and those that went up. Out of curiosity, I also looked up a walkscore at a nearby address.

Traffic Counts from NCDOT that declined between 1997 and 2013

W. Main St by Chapel Hill Tire/Akai Hana (4% decline; Walkscore: 83)

1997: 4,700

2013: 4,500

N Greensboro between Short and Poplar: (8% decline; Walkscore: 86)

1997: 15,200

2013: 14,000

Rosemary St at Chapel Hill / Carrboro Town Line: (20% decline; Walkscore: 85)

1997: 10,500

2013: 8,400

W. Main St east of Blackwood: (26% decline; Walkscore: 55)

1997: 5,700

2013: 4,200

West Main between Lloyd and Main/Rosemary Split (30% decline; Walkscore: 91)

1997: 24,200

2013: 17,000

Main St between Greensboro and PTA Thrift (25% decrease; Walkscore: 86)

1997: 12,500

2013: 9,400

West Weaver St between N Greensboro and Center St (29% decrease; Walkscore: 86)

1997: 9,200

2013: 6,500

Traffic Counts that stayed the same Between 1997 and 2013

N Greensboro St just north of Blue Ridge Rd (0% decline/increase; Walkscore: 13)

1997: 6,000

2013: 6,000

S Greensboro between Carr and Old Pittsboro (0% decline/growth; Walkscore: 85)

1997: 12,000

2013: 12,000

Traffic Counts that went up Between 1997 and 2013

North Greensboro St between Morningside Dr and Hanna St: (6% increase; Walkscore:34)

1997: 6,600

2013: 7,000

Hillsborough Rd between Dillard and Greensboro St: (6% increase; Walkscore: 35)

1997: 1,600

2013: 1,700

Estes east of N Greensboro: (11% increase; Walkscore: 65)

1997: 12,600

2013: 14,000

Hillsborough Rd between Pine and Main: (8% increase; Walkscore: 65)

1997: 2,500

2013: 2,700

N Greensboro St between Weaver and Main: (22% increase; Walkscore: 91)

1997: 9,000

2013: 11,000

Jones Ferry Rd between Old Fayetteville Rd and NC 54: (4% increase; Walkscore: 42)

1997: 10,600

2013: 11,000

NC 54 between Old Fayetteville Rd and NC 54/West Main St Intersection: (18% increase; Walkscore: 42)

1997: 15,200

2013: 18,000

So what happened?

Carrboro invested in other ways of getting around. According to the recently released DCHC-MPO Mobility Report Card, Carrboro:

Increased sidewalk mileage by 24% between 2005 and 2013, adding 7 miles of sidewalk- making it easier to walk around town.
Increased bike lane mileage by 24% in the same period, adding 3 miles of bike lanes
More than doubled its mileage of multi-use paths to 3.8 miles in total
Had buses go fare free in 2002 on Chapel Hill Transit. Many of the places with declines are along major bus corridors in Carrboro on the F, J, and CW routes.

The Mobility Report Card also describes Main Street in Carrboro as one of the region’s leading “Multimodal Corridors” – places with more than 25% of trips that are not drive-alone trips. Trips on Main Street in 2012 were 57% by car, 6% by transit, 27% by walking, and 10% by bike.

When you give people viable choices for travel beyond the car, they use them.

Source data found here:

1997 AADT Counts – Chapel_Hill-Carrboro-1997-aadt

2013 AADT Counts – Chapel_Hill-Carrboro-2013-aadt

Transit Tourism Opportunity on Sunday 9/28: Carrboro Music Festival!

Posted on September 26, 2014 by patrick

Carrboro Music Festival

Well, it’s decorative gourd season, friends, and the weather looks perfect this weekend, AND the Carrboro Music Festival is Sunday. I expect to be over there by foot/bike/wagon or some combination thereof, but for Durhamites who feel like Carrboro is a long drive to hang out with 10,000 other music lovers taking in 180 local bands for free, then good news! For the first time ever, you can take Triangle Transit to get you to the festival, as long as you’re willing to do a little walking.

Route 400 leaves Durham Station every hour from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm on Sundays now, and drops you off on Franklin St in Chapel Hill at the Varsity Theater. Just walk due west down Franklin along maybe the nicest stretch of city street in NC, and you’ll arrive in the middle of all the music in about 15 minutes or so.

Buses head back to Durham from the Carolina Coffee Shop (directly across from the Varsity, where you got off) a little after the hour, with the final bus leaving at 6:12 pm.

Here’s a link to the Route 400 bus schedule. Download the Transloc App (Iphone or Android) to track buses in real time and locate stops.

Music starts at 1:00 p.m. so you can easily catch 4-4.5 hours of music before needing to walk back to Chapel Hill to bus it home. Have a great weekend!

Visiting Carrboro and Chapel Hill Without a Car Just Got A Lot Easier

Posted on September 8, 2014 by patrick

New regional bus service on weekends from Triangle Transit is making intercity and interstate travel to and from Chapel Hill/Carrboro without a car easier than it has ever been.

If you try to visit the Research Triangle region of North Carolina without driving your own car here, you will generally arrive by one of three methods:

By Plane – To RDU Airport, which is in between Raleigh and Durham, just north of the town of Morrisville
By Bus – To Durham Station in downtown Durham via Megabus; or to the Raleigh Greyhound station on Capital Blvd
By Train – To the Raleigh, Cary or Durham Amtrak Stations

None of these arrival points are in Chapel Hill or Carrboro, which means if you want to get to our neck of the woods, you need to then either use Triangle Transit’s regional bus service, rent a car, or take an expensive cab/UberX ride.

Before August 2014, Triangle Transit had offered service that stopped serving Chapel Hill around 6:45 pm on Saturdays, and there was no Sunday service at all.

Triangle Transit Expands Weekend Service August 2014

But as of August 18th, 2014 – these gaps in the regional bus schedule have been filled in!

Regional Saturday service now runs as late as the weekday service on routes 400 and 800, and Sunday service runs from 7 am to 7 pm. What this means is that trips that were either impossible or forced a car rental for a weekend visit, can now, in most cases- be accomplished using Triangle Transit regional services, local buses, and walking in the urban core of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. This will give travelers more options, and save them money.

Here’s a quick rundown of your options.

Downtown Durham and Bus 400 or 405 = best Ground Transport Access to Chapel Hill / Carrboro

Piedmont Arrives at Durham Amtrak Station

Arriving by Amtrak in Durham, every train arrival of the entire week except for the last train from Charlotte (#76) on Sunday nights – allows for a successful connection on to Chapel Hill via Triangle Transit bus 400 or 405. Unfortunately, the earliest southbound train out of Durham leaves before the first bus from Chapel Hill each morning reaches Durham. Hopefully this connection will be added in the future.

However, the rest of the daily outbound train schedule in Durham is well served. Amtrak has direct connections from Durham to everywhere Amtrak’s Carolinian and Piedmont travel, including Charlotte, Greensboro, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC.

Also arriving in Durham, directly across Chapel Hill Street from the Amtrak Station at the corner of Willard and Chapel Hill, is the one stop for Megabus in the Triangle. Megabus has direct service from Durham to Charlotte, Fayetteville, Richmond, and Washington, DC.

To get from either the Amtrak station or Megabus stop to Chapel Hill / Carrboro, walk to the bus center and connect via routes 400 and 405. 400 runs all day long, and 405, which is slightly faster, runs on the weekdays during rush hour. You can find schedules for bus 400 and 405 here.

To be sure, you could also reach the Triangle by train in Raleigh or Cary, and by Greyhound bus in Raleigh as well. That said, if you’re trying to get to Chapel Hill or Carrboro, your connection will be shorter and more convenient from Durham. The only time this might not be true is if you arrive at the Raleigh Amtrak station by one of the trains that do not stop at Durham, such as the Silver Star, Silver Meteor, and the Palmetto. If this is how you reach the Triangle, use the Trip Planner at www.gotriangle.org for the best way to continue on to Chapel Hill / Carrboro on Triangle Transit.

RDU Airport, Bus 100 and Connect to Bus 800 = best Air Transport Access to Chapel Hill / Carrboro

If you fly into RDU Airport, the bus that will pick you up, no matter whether you land at Terminal 1 or Terminal 2, is Triangle Transit bus 100. Note that this bus follows the same traffic pattern through the airport whether it is going to Raleigh or to the Regional Transit Center (RTC). When 100 arrives, assuming you’re headed for Chapel Hill or Carrboro, just confirm with the driver that you are boarding a 100 bus headed towards the RTC, and you’ll be on your way. The RTC is quite close to the airport, and after departing Terminal 2, you’ll reach the RTC in just under 15 minutes.

Once at the RTC, you will find that every time bus 100 arrives, so do bus 700 (goes to Durham) and bus 800 (goes to Chapel Hill). Board 800, and about 30 to 35 minutes later, you’ll be in Chapel Hill at the UNC Student Union. If you’re headed to downtown Chapel Hill or Carrboro, it’s best to stay on to the first stop past the Morehead Bell Tower (can’t miss it), and then either walk up Columbia Street to Franklin, or if you’ve got heavy luggage, catch any Chapel Hill Transit bus with a name that doesn’t end in “X” at Sitterson Hall heading north to get to downtown, which is only 2 stops away.

Franklin and Columbia Streets – the Heart of Chapel Hill Transit

Now that you’re in downtown Chapel Hill, if you’re at the corner of Franklin and Columbia, you have easy access via Chapel Hill Transit to pretty much everywhere the bus system goes in either Chapel Hill or Carrboro. The F, J, or CW bus will take you to downtown Carrboro in about 7-8 minutes. The NS will take you to Southern Village or the north end of Chapel Hill. The D or F can take you to eastern Chapel Hill.

Transit Information is Text and Smartphone-Ready in the Research Triangle

If you’re reading this for the first time, I can understand how this may all sound a little complicated. That said, if you’re a visitor, there are lots of ways to get customer information about these and other bus services. Perhaps the most useful are the Transloc and Transloc Rider apps in the usual smartphone stores. They are free and integrate real-time arrival information for every bus and every bus stop in the Triangle. You can see the system in action on the web as well at triangle.transloc.com You can also call 919-485-RIDE to speak to customer service representatives who can provide trip planning assistance.

Fares

The base fare for Triangle Transit for a one-way trip is $2.25. Chapel Hill Transit routes within Chapel Hill and Carrboro are free to everyone, so unless you’re planning to ride Triangle Transit multiple times in one day, paying for regional buses by trip with cash is the best, most cost-efficient way to pay. More information on fares, including youth and senior discounts, can be found here.

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?

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.

Quick Thoughts on Carrboro Music Festival 2013

Posted on September 30, 2013 by patrick

Another Carrboro Music Festival (CMF) is in the books, and generally speaking, it was a great afternoon. The timing of the event usually provides some of the best weather central North Carolina can offer, temperature/humidity-wise, and today delivered on that count in spades. I biked all over the place, taking advantage of our new bicycle facilities on Main Street and the elevator to the roof of the parking deck. (more on that later)

As usual, the music was tremendous- I caught several excellent performances spanning a slew of genres, mostly from people who live in town or nearby. The Tim Smith Band‘s reggae-influenced cover of “Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison was my favorite surprise of the day- just flat out awesome, even in a set that pretty much killed for 40 minutes straight. Doug Largent‘s organ playing was a great joy to hear in person for the first time as well. DC and I closed out the night at Steel String listening to Wes Collins‘ riveting “Waiting,” and then packed up the stroller and headed for home.

Wes Collins (standing) & Danny Gotham at Steel String Brewery

Beyond enjoying the day, though, I spent a portion of my time wandering around thinking about what the CMF tells us about Carrboro for the other 364 days of the year.

Here are my take-aways. Unsurprisingly with me, they are public space and transport-centric:

Lots of cities talk about “managing/cultivating/some-action-verbing” their brand, and I have previously heard that a good brand “delivers on a promise.” Carrboro has a brand and it lives it without much fuss- the town is informal, fun, musical, artistic, accepting, and comfortable with a certain amount of chaos in service of those things. The CMF is not the town putting on a persona for a day; it’s just Carrboro being Carrboro, only more than usual. That’s a good thing.
It’s great to see buses running in Carrboro on Sundays. We need our transit network to be a seven-day-a-week service. I asked Chapel Hill Transit staff and they said that a total of 679 passengers rode the two buses that provided Shuttle service on Sunday.
Even on the day of the year when the most visitors the town receives at once are there, traffic just isn’t that bad. And maybe the alternatives to get downtown help a lot with that, but still.
The parking deck was open, but not from the side that most people were likely to get the chance to take advantage of it. Even so, Levels 1-2 and a small part of 3 in the deck were filled. The roof, 4, and 5 were mostly empty even after going past all the spaces reserved for the hotel. Check it out:
3rd Level Parking Deck During Late Afternoon CMF
The sidewalks on our major streets need to be wider. Walking in Carrboro can sometimes feel tenuous under usual conditions, but the CMF crowds exacerbate this by pointing out how deteriorated some of our sidewalks are in our most heavily-trafficked areas. I’m thinking particularly of the sidewalks just east of the railroad tracks on both sides of Main St. Hopefully we can plan for some improvements here for the pieces that 300 East Main’s redevelopment will not address.
Closing Weaver Street between the intersection with Main/Roberson and the Weaver/Greensboro intersection yields a pretty minimal impact to the overall traffic conditions but provides a fantastic livability dividend to everyone who gets to enjoy the street. We’ve had a long-term closure of this space for the Weaver Street re-construction and multiple events like CMF and Carrboro Open Streets show us that the town can not only survive, but THRIVE- without that roadway capacity. We should think about what an opportunity that is for Carrboro to create a public space unlike any other in a town our size. More on that in a future post.

Did you have any observations you’d like to share from CMF 2013? Please add them in the comments!

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.

Measuring Transit Access to Potential Southern Orange County Library Sites

Posted on April 8, 2013 by patrick

When considering where to site a public library in Southern Orange County, one of the criteria studied by both town and county staff has been the presence of public transportation, in this case, Chapel Hill Transit bus service. Evaluating this criteria has been conducted by noting the distance to the nearest bus stop in materials we have seen thus far. However, transit service is not evenly distributed at every stop and different bus stops provide different levels of access to the rest of the transit network at large.

Fortunately, there is a great tool called Mapnificent that allows you to calculate how far you can travel from a specific point on transit at a certain time of day. This calculation is completed using the Google Transit data for a community that is publicly available.

Using Mapnificent, I created the following maps for the three county sites that the Carrboro Board of Aldermen sent to the Orange County Board of Commissioners, as well as two other sites that were previously mentioned by Carrboro elected officials: 201 S Greensboro St and 300 E Main St. Here are the results. The tool was set to see how many places could reach the library sites within a 15-minute bus ride at 9 am on a weekday.

The light-colored areas can reach the library site within 15 minutes by bus and walking. The remainder of each map cannot.

1128 Hillsborough Rd – County’s Preferred Site as of March 2013

1128 Hillsborough Rd: 15-Minute Transit Shed

As you can see, the site has limited access to most Chapel Hill residents and the most heavily populated parts of Carrboro along Jones Ferry Rd and NC 54 are generally not included in the 15-minute travel zone to this library site.

401 Fidelity St

401 Fidelity St: 15-Minute Transit Shed

401 Fidelity St fares better, covering the major North-South and East-West roads in Chapel Hll, and getting down to part but not all of Southern Village. Coverage is barely reaching Carrboro High School.

301 W Main St (Town Hall Site)

301 West Main St: 15-Minute Transit Shed

The Carrboro Town Hall site shows expanding coverage through more of Carrboro, as well as improved access to Glen Lennox and other neighborhoods near Eastwood Lake.

201 S Greensboro St (Roberson St Parking Lot Site)

201 South Greensboro St: 15-Minute Transit Shed

Everywhere in Carrboro that has bus service can reach this site in less than 15 minutes by bus. In Chapel Hill, residents along Eubanks Rd and Ephesus Church Rd can reach the library in 15 minutes by bus.

300 E Main St

300 East Main St: 15-Minute Transit Shed

With 300 East Main’s super-central location, now even residents in Durham County have 15-minute or less access by bus to the library. Luckily for us, if we put the library there, those Durham residents might spend some money with our merchants while they visit.

Obviously, there’s more that goes into library site selection than how easy it is to take the bus there. But conversations I’ve had in Carrboro suggest that this is an important criteria for many people, not only for environmental and local economy reasons, but also for social justice ones- like making the library as easy to access as possible for households that may not own a car.

The level of transit service to the library cannot be judged simply by “is there or isn’t there a bus stop nearby?” We also need to look at the amount of network you can reach from that stop, and (perhaps a topic for another post) the level of frequency and hours of service available throughout the day, evening, and weekends.

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Urban Planning for the 21st Century

Category Archives: Public Transit