
{"id":10538,"date":"2010-05-20T12:02:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T20:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=10538"},"modified":"2010-05-20T12:06:30","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T20:06:30","slug":"smith-level-plan-can-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/05\/20\/smith-level-plan-can-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Smith Level plan can work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Smith Level Road is a primary artery for Carrboro, but the lack of sidewalks or even wide shoulders makes it a menace for pedestrians and cyclists. The N.C. Department of Transportation has a new plan that would change the road considerably.<\/p>\n<p>What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the new plan? Aside from a turning lane, the roadway would remain two lanes, but DOT would acquire land for four future lanes (which will not be built without the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approval). This would provide plenty of room for bike lanes and a sidewalk far removed from the busy roadway. Berryhill residents would no longer be able to take a left onto Smith Level Road (SLR), but could take a U-turn at BPW when traveling north. A roundabout would be built near Carrboro High School. Well-designed roundabouts are much safer than traditional stoplights, and the roundabout at Rock Haven would slow traffic down and provide a beautiful entrance into Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>Do the benefits of the new plan outweigh the liabilities for the town? As an advisory board member, I voted to reject two other SLR proposals in the past because I believed they were antithetical to Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vision of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153complete streets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that improve pedestrian, bicyclist and motorist safety. SLR would have gone from two to four lanes, increasing vehicle capacity but doing very little for alternative transportation. The aldermen sent the plan back to DOT, requesting something less expensive that fits our vision.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps unknown to most Carrborites, something changed recently at DOT. After we rejected the last proposal, Mayor Chilton caught the attention of the COO of DOT, Jim Trogdon, and pressed DOT to come up with a plan that matched their Complete Street Policy. And after 20 years of banging heads over SLR, DOT pleasantly surprised us with a new plan, with two lanes, a roundabout, wide bike lanes and sidewalks removed from traffic.<\/p>\n<p>We have a choice of working with DOT and trying to modify small parts of the plan or reject the plan again and live without sidewalks and bike lanes for many more years to come. It would be great to skip the land acquisition, but such a project would not be funded any time soon. I think that DOT has come a long way to support our vision. Although there are some minor elements to improve, I strongly support the new plan.<\/p>\n<p>CHARLIE HILEMAN<br \/>\n<em>Chair, Transportation Advisory Board<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smith Level Road is a primary artery for Carrboro, but the lack of sidewalks or even wide shoulders makes it a menace for pedestrians and cyclists. The N.C. Department of Transportation has a new plan that would change the road considerably.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10538"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10543,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10538\/revisions\/10543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}