Evidently, Tuesday evening was decision night in southern Orange County, as both the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and the Orange County Board of Commissioners reached conclusions on two of the more controversial issues in their jurisdictions.
Carrboro has long tried to find a workable compromise with the state Department of Transportation on the widening of Smith Level Road. The fact that such a heavily traveled road and key artery into town is unsafe for bicyclists and pedestrians in “walkable†Carrboro has been the subject of decades-long debate and negotiation.
Tuesday night, after the latest compromise had progressed as far as the DOT’s design stage, the board of aldermen still could not agree to how wide DOT engineers insist the road should be.
The impact of saying no at this stage has yet to be sorted out, but it undoubtedly means that it will be many more years before the road can safely convey anything but motorized vehicles into town. We urge the town to take a look at least at the idea of making the shoulders of the road less precarious for those who do use it to trek to and from town. Moving in conjunction with the town of Chapel Hill on the Morgan Creek Greenway project could also help afford some of those living on the south side of town an alternative means into town.
As for the county, the commissioners’ decision to drop its “parallel track†to find alternatives to a waste transfer station and concentrate on the N.C. 54 site pleases very few, but represents a practical assessment of the lay of the land.
None of the counties around Orange are willing to pursue a joint project for a waste-to-energy plant and county solid-waste director Gayle Wilson is probably right to note that siting a garbage-incineration facility in Orange County would be met with opposition from a host of environmental groups.
While the people of Bingham Township will continue to do their best to oppose the transfer station, the “winners†in the decision to drop the pursuit of alternatives — the residents of the Rogers-Eubanks Road neighborhood — can hardly be considered fortunate. For them, it’s been an issue of justice denied; and with news that the landfill has another year of life, it’s another example of justice delayed.