
{"id":11424,"date":"2010-07-09T08:51:09","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T16:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=11424"},"modified":"2010-07-09T08:51:09","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T16:51:09","slug":"paved-greenway-has-advantages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/07\/09\/paved-greenway-has-advantages\/","title":{"rendered":"Paved greenway has advantages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The transportation study on which Mr. Birenbach bases much of his opposition to the Greenway (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Environment and Competing Interests,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 7\/1\/10) was based on multilane, high-capacity, high-speed major highways. The proposed greenway will be a single lane limited to bike, wheelchair and foot traffic.<\/p>\n<p>Applying this study to the proposed greenway is like applying a study on the ill effects of coal-fired power electric plants to your backyard grill! Let me rebut some of his points.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 10-100m from a paved surface: road construction &#038; roadside\u00c2\u00a0management, [increased] weeds, local\u00c2\u00a0pollution<br \/>\nThe effects of local pollution and noise are generated by vehicles, emissions, brake dust and petrochemical runoff. These will not be issues with a pedestrian, non-motorized greenway. The alternative Mr. Birenbach supports, putting bikeways along existing roads, actually exposes users to these hazards.<\/p>\n<p> \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 100-1,000m from a paved surface: downstream pollution, erosion,\u00c2\u00a0stream habitat alteration, noise\u00c2\u00a0aversion<br \/>\nThere would be no motorized traffic to create noise. The proposed greenway would actually improve stream quality by providing a firm, stable, well-defined surface for OWASA vehicles to perform required maintenance. <\/p>\n<p>Paving will prevent the rutting which provides the loose soil that washes into the creek \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the major cause of stream degradation. Users will stay on the pavement, minimizing collateral damage to tree roots, shrubs and herbaceous plants.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 >1,000m from a paved surface: landscape fragmentation, local &#038;\u00c2\u00a0regional extinction, weed\u00c2\u00a0invasions, large mammal\u00c2\u00a0movement &#8230; and climate change<\/p>\n<p>How is landscape fragmentation an issue? There would not be barriers such as multiple lanes of speeding cars or guard rails to hinder large mammal movement. The currently un-vegetated pathway is as wide as 25 feet in many places; a 10-foot path with restoration of indigenous vegetation on either side will reduce the heat island effect and discourage weeds.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the only plan for a paved greenway on the Bolin Creek Corridor. The 2009 Comprehensive Bicycle Plan, the 2006 Recreation &#038; Parks Master Plans and the 1998 Facilitated Small Area Plan for the Northern Study Area all recommend a trail along Bolin Creek to meet the need for safe, off-road transportation away from major traffic patterns.<\/p>\n<p>I recommend that anyone interested in the issues read the proposal (which does consider natural science) and the town staff analysis, to be found on the links page of advocatesforcarrborogreenways.org. Consider ALL of the advantages that a greenway can provide for the most citizens. Imagine a Walk for Education going from Morris Grove Elementary to University Mall without ever touching or crossing a street!!<\/p>\n<p>Bruce Sinclair<br \/>\nCarrboro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paving will prevent the rutting which provides the loose soil that washes into the creek \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the major cause of stream degradation. Users will stay on the pavement, minimizing collateral damage to tree roots, shrubs and herbaceous plants.<\/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-11424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11424","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=11424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11425,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11424\/revisions\/11425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}