[Durham INC] Study about Rail Road Crossings in Durham

[Janet Martell]

I'm very concerned about the walkability of our downtown streetscape. Ramping the roads over the tracks removes the blocks on both sides of the tracks from the human landscape and turns them into a vehicle-scale construction. If you've ever walked from 5 Points to the West End on Chapel Hill Street -- there are sidewalks, but the experience of crossing the freeway bridge area is bleak and industrial.

The conversation I've had about this with friends always ends with people saying that having the new commuter and light rail is so important we'll have to just put up with whatever it takes. I hope there are more options here and we can win/win instead of win/lose.

Jan Martell


On Apr 27, 2013, at 1:11 AM, TheOcean1 at aol.com wrote:

> To reach as close to the perfect conclusion as possible, the city and its citizens will need to hit a balance between what the railroad wants, and what the people want.
>  
> I'm just guessing, but that will probably mean concessions that seem insane to us regarding certain intersections like Ellis Rd, in exchange for things far more important to the majority of us, such as creating trails downtown from unused tracks. 
> 
> Bill Anderson
>  
> In a message dated 4/26/2013 10:40:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, pats1717 at hotmail.com writes:
> There was a sequence of public forums this month about the study to make the places where roads cross railroads in Durham safer.  I went looking for more information on the web.  What I found:
> 
> Minutes from presentation to INC in February 2012:
> 
> Kevin Hall talked about the Traffic Separation Study, where the “traffic” to be separated is what is on the railroad track through town, which could be high-speed rail or more frequent commuter rail in the future.  The    options for the 18 crossing being studied are doing nothing, closing the crossing, improving it with better marking or barriers, or actually separating the grades of the street and the railroad.  The changes could be anywhere from short-term (0-3 years) to long-term (7-10 years).  It is an 18-month study, kicked off with visioning workshops in November.  Nothing is decided yet as they are still collecting data.  The study will consider safety (e.g., accident history), mobility and accessibility (how much traffic there is there, for example), and social and economic resources (funding, land-use and so on).  The one crossing people had major comments on was the Broad Street / Swift Avenue one. John will send out the maps and comment information to the list-serve so folks can ask their neighborhoods for their ideas and input.
> 
> 
> 
> There are similar studies going on in other NC cities, with more detail on what is being proposed there.
> 
> The best information I could find on the Durham study is at http://www.durhamnc.gov/agendas_new/2012/cws20121217/8915_PRESENTATION_DURHAM_TRAFFIC_SEPARATION_319363_483869.ppt.PDF
> 
> It looks like they are looking at making BIG, BIG HILLS so the road can go over the railroad at Neal, LaSalle, Anderson, Swift/Broad, Duke, and the list goes on.  The report on the Swift/Broad crossing that we heard at the recent INC meeting was pretty scary.
> 
> Regards, pat
> 
>   
> =
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Durham INC Mailing List
> list at durham-inc.org
> http://www.durham-inc.org/list.html
> _______________________________________________
> Durham INC Mailing List
> list at durham-inc.org
> http://www.durham-inc.org/list.html

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20130427/5eacc440/attachment.html>