The weekend kicked off with a Chapel Hill Town Council work session on Friday, July 12, where representatives from Chapel Hill Transit, Dover, Kohl & Partners Town Planning and AECOM presented to Council members on the project’s progress.
Chapel Hill Transit also hosted focus groups that included the interests of business; institutions and local government; seniors; developers and property managers; cyclists, pedestrians and commuters; and persons with accessibility needs.
The concerns of the focus groups varied. A moderator from Dover, Kohl & Partners said members of the seniors focus group discussed shuttles that would circulate around bus stations to shorten walking distances to and from the stations, while the cyclists and pedestrians focus group said they wanted the north-south corridor to have lower speed limits and “No Right Turn on Red” signs. Members of the accessibility focus group spoke about bus and crosswalk features they hope to see implemented.
Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board member Sam Blank attended one of the weekend’s focus groups. He said he is excited to see the bus rapid transit plan affect traffic on roads like Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
“This is going to decrease traffic, it’s going to increase transit use and increase the positive outlook on transit because the trips are going to be faster,” Blank said.
While the Rapid Transit plan will decrease the number of bus stations, it will not get rid of the stops along the corridor.
“The underlying service is still going to exist, so all the small bus stops in between those stations will be served,” Chapel Hill Transit Development Manager Matt Cecil said. “They won’t be served by the N-S BRT, but things like the A, the G, the T, portions of the NU and the HS that are serving this corridor as well will still be able to pick up at those stops.”
The N-S BRT is in its “30 percent Design Phase,” where a draft design is finalized and non-federal funding sources are identified. Chapel Hill Transit can then submit an application for Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Small Starts funding.
Around 80 percent of the project’s funding is expected to come from the FTA, Cecil said.
While the completion of the Rapid Transit plan is years away, Chapel Hill Transit is already looking at other Bus Rapid Transit routes, including one that would run east to west.
“This weekend is not the end of it,” Cecil said. “It is going to continue all the way through.”
