Transit thoughts
Submitted by smith on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 4:27pm
Transportation issues:
- Road repair and improvement
- Long-term changes in the common mindset - I want to find a way to put permeable pavement peoples' radar...
- WHY can't more people just ride the bus?
- How to get Duke's transportation people talking to the rest of the MPO
- and finally, getting my lazy bum back on a bicycle immediately, if not sooner.
Which leads to personal health:
- I need to start exercising more.
- Which would be much more likely if there were a safe way to bike from CH to Duke.
- Which takes me back to transportation issues - how can we, the citizenry, work on widening Erwin (just 2 feet!! And not even along all of its length!) in Orange Cty? And if so, how do we get Durham to work on it for their part? I KNOW there'd be so many people all over that road, on their bikes. Well, on the side of it.
Which leads to the relationship between health and ways of getting around:
- It is a whole 8 miles, maybe 10, between my office and my house. If I could bike it, I'd be exercising, reducing pollution (well, some, anyway, but because I already take the bus, it wouldn't have as much of an impact as someone who drives would), reducing me, improving my well-being etc. and so forth. But Erwin is freaking scary, all along its whole length, but especially between 15-501 and 751.
- So, I take the bus. Which means I do at least walk some, which is good.
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Funny That You Mention
Pavement.
My little two lane paved cowpath is currently being used by tandem dumptrucks working on the 70 Bypass project.
It's coming apart. The county was out here twice - maybe three times yesterday - for the same hole. Right at the end of my neighbors driveway. It's funny. They patch it...here comes a truck....rrrrip...there goes the patch. Over and over and over.
Last week they patched a blow out bigger than my truck!
Why not ride the bus? WHAT BUS? We don't have any busses out here.
Bicycle? I'm old and decrepit. There's hills between me and town. 5 miles of them. Plus the dumptrucks. At 55mph or better. (probably closer to 60)
I'm green -
but I don't want to die.
The county? Sure it wasn't DOT?
The county doesn't do roads, as we keep getting told. But DOT does, for county roads. Big bright yellow trucks with a tri-sickle logo on the doors...
Anyway, there is some noise about expanding Orange Public Transportation into a full county-wide bus service, and not just para-transit and the one route between Hillsborough and CH. If you want it, make noise about it. Write or email the county commissioners, I assure you they ARE listening. - BJ
Hell, I don't know
big yellow trucks. Not very good at what they do? You're saying they're DOT? The same folks that supervise our state highways?
God help us.
I came from FL and I used to work in road construction. I know what goes into building a road. My road doesn't have it. Never did & never will unless they mill it , re-base it, (they didn't base it the first time) and repave it.
God help us.
And I do make noise. But I live in Johnston. We have some good guys but we also have some deadheads. gimme, gimme, gimme... it's all about them. ffffttttt.....
A lot of the patching I'm told...
is done by the prisoners from the County.
God I Hope Not
These guys were in regular clothes. I know what you mean though - I've seen those guys out on the 'big roads'. But I thought they were picking up trash.
Don't prisoners working have to be escorted by cops?
I'm all for rehabilitation but don't bring criminals into my neighborhood. Great. Take 'em all around town and let them see which neighborhoods are empty during the weekday hours. (fortunately, my neighborhood isn't.)
Smart. Real smart.
NOT
They definitely patch holes.
But, I don't know what percentage of holes they patch. Also, some older roads that are due for resurfacing in a few years will be patched in the meantime. The patchworks is not always of the highest quality, as I hear again from you.
You're right about Erwin Road
Bicycling there is a death wish.
About this...
The funding issues for getting roads widened seem to be nebulous. There were "moving ahead" funds that were used to widen some roads for bike lanes, or to provide turn lanes. These no longer exist. There is repaving money, but it is not used to widen roads. There is surfacing of secondary road funding, but it is not used to widen roads. There are bike lane projects that can be submitted, but the last Orange County project asked for more money than was spent in the ENTIRE STATE on bike projects, I'm told.
In short, there is no good method of widening roads. Orange County is hoping to work with the DOT to see if "problem spots", like blind corners and hills could be widened, which would make some roads bike friendly.
I'm still not sure of how the final decisions are made at the MPO and RPO level, politics, statistics, a mix of both. One example I heard of recently was a road that was repaved an widened throughout an entire county, but it then stopped right at the county line. That sounds illogical, and thus, political.