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Chapel Hill steps up pedestrian safety efforts

Posted on December 11, 2008December 11, 2008 by Staff

by Rich Fowler
Staff Writer

Improving safety at bus stops and better training procedures are among the efforts reviewed Monday night by the Chapel Hill Town Council at its meeting at Town Hall.

The council heard reports from Chapel Hill Transit director Steve Spade and town traffic engineer Kumar Neppali on steps being made to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety. Two pedestrians have been hit and killed by Chapel Hill Transit buses this year.

Spade said that since the summer, the transit department has been reviewing its internal training procedures to try to find new ways to improve pedestrian safety. They have hired McDonald Transit Associates, a national transit consulting firm, to conduct a safety audit of the department. McDonald will finish its audit in early 2009.

The department is also considering new ways to make getting on and off the bus safer by looking at how bus stops and shelters are constructed and placed next to roads.

Neppali detailed a number of safety improvements planned for next spring including;
• new bus pull-outs and a sidewalk between Old Mason Farm Road and Manning Drive on the south side of Fordham Boulevard;

• a pedestrian crosswalk and traffic signal on West Franklin Street near McDonald’s;

• two pedestrian refuge median islands in the middle of Franklin Street near Elizabeth Street and Couch Road, and one on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Piney Mountain Road.

Neppali also said the town would add a pedestrian-only phase to the traffic signal at Cameron Avenue and Columbia Street.

“We are testing this phase as a pilot project,” he said. “It has shown some positive results on the national research.”

If the changes prove successful, Neppali said the town will consider changing the patterns at other downtown intersections, including at Franklin and Columbia streets.

As part of a traffic signal upgrade project, Neppali said his department plans to install bicycle activation loops at 42 intersections starting in the summer of 2009, but a source for funding hasn’t been found yet. The project will also convert all pedestrian crossing signals to countdown timers, like the ones used in downtown Chapel Hill, starting in April.

Future projects, he said, include sidewalks and bicycle lanes on both sides of Weaver Dairy Road, with construction starting in January 2010, and sidewalks and bicycle lanes on both sides of South Columbia Street from Manning Drive to Purefoy Road, including a center turn lane, with construction starting next fall.

In addition to these town projects, the university plans major bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements to the intersection of Fordham Boulevard and Manning Drive in the next two months, including a crosswalk and a pedestrian crossing signal with a countdown timer on Fordham Boulevard, a “Stop Ahead When Flashing” beacon on Fordham Boulevard at Manning Drive and bicycle-activated traffic-signal loops on Manning Drive.
The university also plans to add crosswalks and countdown pedestrian signals at the intersection of Fordham Boulevard and Old Mason Farm Road.

In other action, the council passed a resolution in support of civil marriage for the gay community, similar to the one adopted last week by the Town of Carrboro. The resolution was brought before the council by local teacher Tom Greene.

“As a gay man from Western North Carolina, my partner Adam and I specifically chose the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area to settle down and put down our roots, because we knew in this town we would at least be treated as human beings, deserving rights and responsibilities in the community,” Greene said.

Council Member Mark Kleinschmidt thanked Greene for bringing the matter to the council. He said similar resolutions are being considered across the country.
“Many of my friends who are openly gay and in public office in California of course are very disappointed,” Kleinschmidt said. “And I shared with them this weekend how I wept, as they did, when Prop. 8 passed. But there is a silver lining that has been discovered in this aftermath, and that is this new energy.”

Also at the meeting, Brookline, Mass.-based artist, urban planner and landscape designer Mikyoung Kim presented the final design for public art at 140 West Franklin St.

The inspiration of the piece, called “Exhale,” comes from the shape and form of fog. Fog and blue LED light will emanate from a series of perforated, folded, stainless-steel screens that will form the shape of a low fog cloud. Kim said the piece will only release fog when there’s rainwater to convert to fog.

“It’s actually a piece that exudes fog when there is water and then creates a reminiscence of fog when there is not,” Kim said.

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