Patrick McDonough
Recent Posts
Carrboro Needs a Comprehensive Plan
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Carrboro needs a new Comprehensive Plan, and an entirely new Unified Development Ordinance. The Carrboro Board of Aldermen should take the first step toward these goals by putting money in the town budget to create such a plan.
Carrboro Now Has Express Bus Service to Durham! Here’s How to Use It
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Monday, August 8th was an exciting day- for the first time ever, we now have direct regional bus service to and from Downtown Carrboro! GoTriangle Route 405, which currently runs between Chapel Hill and Durham, will be extended into Carrboro and will provide service during rush hour between Carrboro and Durham. A big crowd was on hand Monday morning to greet the new buses. Here are the key things to know about the new Route 405:
There will be seven departures from Carrboro to Durham every morning, with the earliest at 5:45 AM and the latest one at 8:41 AM. There will be seven return trips in the evening with departures from Durham to Carrboro between 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm.
GoTriangle buses will make two stops in Carrboro: one at Collins Crossing/Abbey Ct, and the other at the Weaver St Realty/Jade Palace pair of bus stops downtown.
Route 405 will provide a ...
Lloyd Farm: What Happens When You Let a Grocery Store Chain Do Urban Design
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After several years of hearing suggestions for improvements from adjacent neighborhoods, elected officials, advisory boards and citizens from all over Carrboro, the folks at Argus Development have submitted plans for what they have always wanted to build here – a grocery-anchored strip mall. I first wrote about this project in 2014, nearly 18 months ago, and have talked to many Carrboro residents about it since. Very, very little about the proposal has changed and its chief flaws dating back to 2014 remain mostly unaddressed.
If I was a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, I would vote to deny this rezoning application.
The most recent site plan attached to Tuesday’s packet is below. If you look at the link above to my prior post, you’ll see little has changed in 18 months. I’m going to list several shortcomings ahead of the image below.
The overall design of the site is simply too ...
At Busiest Time of Day, Downtown Carrboro Has Over 2,000 EMPTY Parking Spaces
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Yes, you read that right. There are usually 2,000 (or more!) parking spaces empty at all times in downtown Carrboro. But we don’t have a way to allow private businesses to partner seamlessly with each other and the town to make these spaces available to the public in a way that balances individual lot owner goals and overall access goals for the downtown, so these spaces go unused when they could be more full.
Until we figure out how to address this untapped parking capacity for the benefit of business owners, the Town, and residents, there is absolutely no reason to build another parking space with public money in downtown Carrboro. It represents a massive opportunity “hiding” in plain sight.
In February, the consulting firm hired by the town to conduct the parking study, VHB, reported the following:
The Town of Carrboro owns 359 public parking spaces in 3 lots
The Town of ...
Carrboro Likely to Approve Homestead-Chapel Hill High School Path for Construction
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Near the end of their May 10th meeting, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen affirmed their commitment to see the Homestead-Chapel Hill High School Multi-Use Path move forward to construction this summer.
Compromise Recommended by the School System Staff and Town of Carrboro Staff
Early in the meeting, Todd LoFrese of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School System took to the podium to describe a compromise that had been worked out between school staff and Town of Carrboro staff regarding the Multi-Use Path. That compromise took the following form:
Reduced the number of Multi-Use Path crossings of the Cross-Country trail from three to one.
Proposed looking at alternative surfaces (such as ADA-compliant rubber instead of concrete) at the remaining crossing.
Explore creating as much separation as possible where the multi-use path and the cross country trail parallel each other.
One citizen brought forward an interesting photo (at right) showing staggered gates on a greenway designed to slow riders ...
Restoring Sidewalk Space for People By Gardening: Local Business Edition
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Today I was out walking with DC along West Weaver Street, and I started noticing all the curb cuts for various driveways. Really, a curb cut is a big red flag for people walking that implicitly says “stop relaxing and look out, you could be endangered at a moment’s notice by a car here!”
But then I walked by Carrboro Family Vision, and noticed what a great job they had done to unplug this dynamic. Look at how they’ve succeeded through the magic of Google Streetview’s older photos.
Carrboro Family Vision Building – 2012
Carrboro Family Vision Building – Upgrade in Progress September 2014
Carrboro Family Vision – April 2016
This was my view on a recent beautiful sunny Saturday. Instead of parking spaces, we have planters, flowers, a friendly notice of services available, and a garden path to their door and bike rack. (not visible in photo but it’s right around the corner) The ...
GoTriangle Proposes Carrboro-Durham Bus Service, Additional Fast Trips from Chapel Hill
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Carrboro residents who work at Duke or in Downtown Durham may soon have a new transportation choice: direct regional bus service on GoTriangle Route 405. Chapel Hill residents who work in the same places could see more fast trips this fall as well if GoTriangle implements the service proposal that is now out for public comment.
What Regional Bus Service Is Available Today Between Chapel Hill and Durham?
Currently, there are two regional bus routes operated by GoTriangle that link the Carolina Coffee Shop/Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill to Duke Hospital and Durham Station in Durham:
Route 405, which is faster and runs during peak hours only, departures every 30 minutes
Route 400, which covers more territory and takes 15 minutes longer than 405 to make the same trip, departures every 30 minutes
In the middle of the day, only Route 400 runs and the buses come once every 60 minutes. But there’s another quirk ...
American Community Survey Shows Bike Commuting Explosion in Carrboro
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There’s big news for Carrboro in the latest American Community Survey Data – bike commuting has really taken off in town in the last five years.
The most detailed, statistically reliable information we have on how people commute to work is now part of the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS collects data every year, but has the greatest validity and reliability in its 5-Year Estimates. In December 2015, the Census Bureau released the 5-Year Estimates for 2010-2014, allowing for the first time ever a comparison to the 2005-2009 5-Year Estimates.
Here’s what the data tells us:
Workers age 16 or older living in town increased from roughly 10,100 to 11,900 between the 2005-2009 and 2010-2014 periods.
Percentages for travel mode to work in 2010-2014 were mostly similar to 2005-2009, with bicycle travel being the big change:
Drive alone travel to work rose from 60.6% to 61.6%
Carpooling fell from 13.0% to 11.2%
Public Transportation fell from ...
Key Takeaway From Summer Streets: It’s Time for Autumn Streets
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Sunday, July 19th, from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm, Carrboro held its second “Summer Streets” (Herald Sun article) event, in which the block of Weaver St between Main St and North Greensboro St was opened to people and closed to cars. For the umpteenth time in the decade and a half I’ve lived here, the Town closed this portion of Weaver Street with no visible negative impacts to traffic or downtown in general.
As usual, people came out and enjoyed a calm public space, kids drew with chalk, and everyone generally had a grand time relaxing, even with 100-degree heat index temperatures. People did yoga, hung out in folding chairs just talking, and one of our Aldermen even held “office hours” for the second time during such an event.
What does opening a street to people do for a town? Stuff like this:
Kurt Stolka and his 3-year-old son walked around Weaver Street ...
At Its Core, The Word “Urban” Is About Life On Foot
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Editor’s note: I originally published this post on February 18, 2013, but there’s been a lot of discussion about density, urbanity, and quality of life in local media recently, and I thought it was worth re-publishing this.
Original post below:
On this blog, I’ll be discussing a variety of topics regarding questions of town-building for Carrboro, North Carolina and other places. But one I’ll probably come back to again and again is the word “urban.” Knowing that, I want to be as clear as possible about what I mean when I use this term.
In growth debates, this tends to mean a lot of things to a lot of people. More than a few people hear “urban” and immediately think “Manhattan” or “New York.” Interestingly enough, I think that when people say New York, they actually do mean “Manhattan,” and not Brooklyn, Queens, or any of the other boroughs. They are thinking of ...