By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
More lanes along sections of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, traffic circles there and on Estes Drive and at Rogers Road and Homestead Road, speed tables in Elkins Hills and other neighborhoods and even a “minor restriping†in downtown Carrboro are among the possible ways to mitigate a surge in traffic predicted to accompany the buildout of Carolina North.
A traffic impact study on the university’s proposal to develop an academic mixed-use campus on its Horace Williams property was reviewed Monday night at Town Hall as the Chapel Hill Town Council opened three public hearings on the project.
One hearing looks at the details of a proposed new zone called U-1 for University 1. The other two hearings are on the request to rezone 643 acres of the Horace Williams property to the new zone and the extensive development agreement that’s been the subject of negotiations between town and university officials for more than a year. Town and university officials hope to complete an agreement on the project prior to the council’s summer break.
In his introductory remarks, David Owens, a planning and zoning expert with the School of Government who has worked with the town on the negotiations, said the new zone and the development agreement go hand in hand. While there has been considerable progress since negotiations started in February 2008, there remain several details to work out in some of the 25 separate subject areas.
In his initial walk-through of the project, Carolina North executive director Jack Evans said the development plan and the new zone would allow the university and the town “certainty, timeliness and predictability†during the buildout of the project. For review of the potential impact of the project, studies have focused on two interim phases — one that supposes 800,000 square feet of construction by 2015 and another for 3 million square feet by 2025.
The traffic impact analysis was the first detailed look at how the development might alter the local landscape. Traffic engineering consultant Chris Conklin said that by far the biggest impact will be due to new commuters coming into town from elsewhere in the Triangle. About 60 percent of the anticipated new jobs would travel from outside Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
Most of those traveling into the area will use either I-40 or U.S. 15-501 or both to get to Carolina North, Conklin said, with many of them likely to funnel into the Eubanks Road park-and-ride lot and on to buses for the final leg of the journey.
Conklin noted that many of the intersections around the project are already congested and even without Carolina North are expected to reach unacceptable levels of delays by 2015.
According to the study, about 10,000 additional trips — about half by automobile — are expected to be generated by 2015. The additional transit use by then will put the North-South bus route at capacity, requiring at least two more buses and between 400 and 500 additional park-and-ride spaces. By 2025, the trip-generation number will rise to 40,000, driving the need for about 10 additional buses, a likely restructuring of the transit routes and about 1,500 additional park-and-ride spots.
The study supposes there will be roughly 5,000 additional parking spaces at Carolina North, an amount that raised concern among several council members.
“I can’t imagine that much parking at the heart of town,†councilmember Bill Strom said.
Also at Monday’s hearing, members of Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth, a group that has hosted several neighborhood focus groups and a recent community meeting on Carolina North traffic, urged the council to push for measures to reduce the impact on nearby neighborhoods.
NRG chair Madeline Jefferson said the council should also set up a mechanism to regularly measure the impact of the actual project and hold up construction if the results are out of line with expectations.
NRG member Alan Snavely also said the council should have some way of responding in case plans for traffic mitigation fail.
“Citizens want safeguards in place when plans for the development don’t work out,†he said.
Peggy Rich said her neighbors in Ironwoods are worried that a lot more traffic on Estes Drive and Homestead Road will affect the safety of students walking to and from school.
Doug McLean asked the council to seek more ways to improve bicycle and pedestrian access to the site, particularly for people coming by bike from Carrboro.
“In order to do this, we have to think big and have to think big at the beginning,†he said.
The council continued all three public hearings until June 15.