Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

For the Record: 01/24/08

Posted on January 23, 2008 by Staff

Caution: heavy traffic
It was a relief to hear that a strong emphasis will be placed on downtown parking during the board of aldermen retreat later this month. As the board will tell you and as anyone trying to place a vehicle within the confines of the town’s blocks during a busy evening, the parking situation is growing more frustrating by the month.

All that’s about to change, though, and not for the better, as projects get under way and a good portion of downtown turns from parking lot to construction site. Two major projects already approved will take parking lots heavily used by patrons of downtown businesses out of commission. Add to that the additional traffic and parking needs for construction crews.

On the other side of all that construction is, first, more construction, then, with some luck, we’ll have a downtown as envisioned. Luck and a lot of planning.

We knew that with growing upward in downtown and redeveloping it into a much more dense, peopled and commercially active place there would be some serious growing pains.

Now, it is very clearly time to act. In the short term, the town needs to get the process started to develop a formal downtown parking strategy. While there’s been a lot of thought put into parking, there’s been too much reliance on the private sector to solve the problems. Also in the short run is the need to think creatively about how to handle the construction phases ahead and prevent the impending scarcity from leading to ugly situations. A glance to our big city neighbor to the east, where businesses are resorting to valet parking and outright lot wars have commenced, shows you what we might have to look forward to.

Farther out, but not too far, the town should consider what in polite society is termed “structured parking” — be it in conjunction with a developer or on its own. For a town that’s been trying to get people out of their cars for decades a parking deck or a similar beast might seem like a U-Turn in public policy. But as one merchant pointed out at this week’s board of aldermen meeting, most of the people strolling around downtown got there by car and have simply stashed it somewhere convenient whilst they enjoy the atmosphere.

And as one of this town’s most ardent transit proponents pointed out at the same meeting, though, we long for that day when the car won’t be needed (or as needed) we’re not there yet and we need to deal with that.

One thing that probably ought to be dealt with right away is that the town has no formal process for receiving a payment-in-lieu for parking and no ordinance on the books for residential only parking areas.

We’re already at a point where diners prowl the lots for an open space waiting for a spot.

There’s no sense in waiting for another study or traffic analysis or visioning process to develop a parking strategy. Plans have been approved. Construction is fixing to start and, after that, more cars are coming to downtown. They’re going to go somewhere. The question is where?

Arriba food lovers
Chowhounds in this area are pretty well acquainted with the taco trucks of downtown Carrboro. They tell us that the Al Pastor taco at the truck based at Fitch Lumber is rather nice way to cap off an evening out and that the sauces at the truck down at Johnny’s Sporting Goods are always fresh and full of flavor. And down at the truck at Cliff’s evidently there’s a special taco with pineapple that’s worth the trip.

If you haven’t experienced these things, you may be out of luck unless the town officials change their ruling that the trucks are out of compliance with zoning regulations. This has nothing to do with health and safety regulations — the trucks are inspected and approved by county health officials.

After a year of winning our hearts through our stomachs closing them down seems an awfully drastic and unnecessary step.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme