[Durham INC] The Future of US 70

[Stephen Knill]

A major meeting on the Future of US 70 was held on May 22nd at Carolina Arbors in SE Durham. Speakers included State Senator Mike Woodard, State House of Representatives member, Zack Hawkins (both on the State Transportation committee), NCDOT District 5 engineer, Brandon Jones and DCHC MPOExecutive Director, Doug Plachcinski. The event was attended by Mayor O’Neill and Councilpersons Middleton, Williams, Caballero and Hosey along with about 200 Carolina Arbors residents.

Attached please find video of the nearly 2 hour meeting along with supporting documents refuting the climate and safety advantages being promoted by the MPO in their approach to make the road a boulevard. This has been an amazing process with the MPO refusing to even acknowledge the existence of a mapped, funded NCDOT plan in community engagements and their plan to host another round of resident discussions in the hopes of finding people who agree with their approach. (Since in the first round they were told to pursue the limited highway option.) CAMPO, the Wake County counterpart, is going with the freeway option as was DCHC MPO before a change in its leadership.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsHp2vfJzLg
https://www.prwlaw.com/are-highways-safer-than-roads/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6862437/
As Councilperson Williams said in an N&O interview on April 12, “the state’s current system of highways and roads work best for rural and suburban areas but isn’t a good fit for urban areas that want alternatives.” Last we checked, SE Durham is Suburban to Rural, not Urban.

Best….
Stephen Knill
Co-founder, the Leesville Road Coalition
Vice President, The InterNeighborhood Council of Durham


Stephen Knill
knillsj at gmail.com<mailto:knillsj at gmail.com>
+(917) 620-4941

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