The following text was sent out on November 29, 2022 to the email list of the Carrboro Linear Parks Project, our initiative to build a network of connected, accessible greenways in Carrboro. Check out the Project’s dedicated website here, and join the email list here.
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Greetings,
Thank you for your interest in the greenways, linear parks, and trails in Carrboro. We are excited to look ahead to an accessible, connected network of trails for everyone in town. The Bolin Creek Greenway is an important, missing component of this network, and our first goal is to advocate for the Town of Carrboro to move forward on completing this trail.
We wanted to give you an update on where the process is right now, what we expect to happen in the coming months, and how you can help build support for this important town project.
TL;DR The town council session to start moving the process forward was pushed back from December to (probably) January.
Also, we are hosting our monthly happy hour this Thursday at Steel String Brewery in Carrboro, 6pm! More details below.
What is the current situation?
The Carrboro Town Council has not voted on anything related to the Bolin Creek Trail since 2018, when they resolved to have a future work session to discuss the public engagement process on Phases 3 and 4 of the Bolin Creek Conceptual Greenway Plan.
On October 21st of this year the Carrboro Town Manager, Richard White, emailed the Town Council to request any questions council had for town staff related to a public engagement process for completing the Bolin Creek Greenway. The goal was to schedule the council work session during one of the remaining council meetings of the 2022 calendar year, but the volume of questions received from council required it to be pushed into the 2023 calendar year.
What are the next steps?
The next step is for town staff to schedule the work session on public engagement for Phases 3 and 4 of the Bolin Creek Greenway. The details of the trail itself will not be the topic of this particular work session, they will only consider the best approaches for ensuring that public input for the project is fair and equitable.
We are reasonably confident that this work session will happen in January 2023. Once a decision is made on how to conduct public input, the Town can move forward with discussions on the details and design of the trail itself!
What can I do now?
You can always write to the Town Council and let them know that you are following this issue and looking forward to having a greenway along Bolin Creek in the future. If you’re unsure of what to say, you can look at the website for the Linear Parks Project and highlight that the greenway will make it safer and easier for your kids to get to school, or that you appreciate how greenways will connect people to our parks and green space — or that you’re looking forward to being able to one day go, on foot or on bike, all the way across town off-road.
The other thing you can do right now is talk to your friends and neighbors and get them to sign up for this email list (here’s a link).
For our part, we will let you know when the Town Manager schedules the work session to discuss the public engagement process. At that time, we will reach back out and ask if you can write to the council or appear at a meeting to support an inclusive process that takes everyone’s interests into account.
If you don’t feel comfortable doing either of those things, that is ok! We are glad you are interested and want to keep everyone informed about the project. We will also be organizing some hikes along Bolin Creek in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, so stay tuned for more information about that soon.
How can I learn more about the details of this project?
Wanting the greenway and supporting the project is as much as some busy people can handle, but if you want to dig in about greenway engineering, how it helps reduce stormwater runoff, or what’s in those pipes you see on the easement, we have a resource list below to help you understand some of those issues.
The long history of Carrboro’s planned greenway network
The Bolin Creek Greenway Concept Plan (approved back in 2009)
Article explaining the current political atmosphere around building the greenway
Greenway engineers discuss Bolin Creek and show how the greenway in Chapel Hill has improved creek health (highly recommend)
Explanation of a sewer easement
Op-ed making the climate case for a connected greenway network
Carrboro’s biennial community report supporting greenways
Interview with wildlife ecologist about ecological impacts of extending the Bolin Creek Trail (highly recommend)
Finally, we’d like to invite you to the monthly NEXT happy hour called First Thursday. We’ll be meeting at Steel String Brewery in Carrboro on Thursday, December 1st, from 6-8pm. You can make some new friends and see a homemade map that showcases destinations along the existing and future Bolin Creek Greenway. More details can be found in our newsletter and in this graphic.
As always, we are grateful for your interest in this and confident that one day we will be cutting a ribbon on a Carrboro Bolin Creek Greenway. We will be back in touch soon!
Sincerely,
The Carrboro Linear Parks Project
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