Dream first; set your sights; then figure out what you have to do to get there. That philosophy has worked for me over the years, and town staff used it, too, last Saturday by hosting a charrette to find out what value taxpayers believe the 36-acre parcel we bought from the American Legion could add […]
All posts in category Roads
Chapel Hill’s Central Park?
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 10, 2017
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2017/04/10/chapel-hills-central-park/
No right-on-red is wrong
Once in a while, an unpleasant experience turns out to be a gift. Such was an evening rush hour recently when I sat in traffic on Estes Drive, heading west from Franklin Street to turn right on MLK Jr. Boulevard. Traffic had backed up almost to the library, giving me time not only to come […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 29, 2016
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/02/29/no-right-on-red-is-wrong/
On ice
The calls started coming in Sunday before the sun had reached high noon. Constituents who live on what’s known as “tertiary streets” phoned me because they knew I’d understand their cabin fever. All of us were iced in, and our good humor had begun to fray. Tertiary streets are those out-of-the-way neighborhoods that are the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 25, 2016
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2016/01/25/on-ice/
The Council Show
At the election night party I attended last week, the wife of a supporter mentioned that she’d gotten so caught up in the excitement of the campaign that she might even tune into what she called “The Council Show.” Certainly campaign and post-election coverage in the popular press loads expectation that episodes of The Council […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 9, 2015
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2015/11/09/the-council-show/
Just because they can
Last week a man carried a loaded assault rifle into the Atlanta airport while he dropped off his daughter for her flight. Georgia passed a law last year that allows permitted gun owners to carry loaded weapons in an airport, as long as they don’t go through the TSA security checkpoint. The man said he […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 8, 2015
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2015/06/08/just-because-they-can/
Ghost bikes
The electronic sign in the median of N.C. 54 urging cars to share the road with bikes might cause some drivers to keep alert to cyclists. The white Ghost Bike propped against the bridge railing next to Run-In Jim’s on MLK Jr. Boulevard will help them understand why. In early October, Pamela Lane was killed […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 3, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/11/03/ghost-bikes/
Bike wreck
My husband almost became a statistic last week in a bike accident eerily similar to the one that killed cyclist Pamela Lane the week before. He and I had come out of the Community Center end of the greenway and were riding on the sidewalk along Estes during the after-work rush-hour. We chose to ride […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 13, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/10/13/bike-wreck/
DHIC project DOA for now
Last week, the N.C. Housing Finance Agency announced its list of tax credit winners for affordable housing projects. DHIC was not on it. Recall that Town Council had agreed to sell 8.5 acres of vacant cemetery land to DHIC for $100 if the nonprofit would build workforce and affordable senior apartments there. DHIC said it […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 25, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/08/25/dhic-project-doa-for-now/
Road noise
You don’t see this every day: Roger Perry ceding to “a small group of people who make noise about everything.” What his phrasing lacked in graciousness, his gesture made up for in integrity. Perry said he’d pay for the street that connects his proposed apartment complex to Elliott Road, a road that from the onset […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 21, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/07/21/road-noise/
Breaking inauspicious
You know how you approached the start of every episode of “Breaking Bad” with the feeling that something was going to happen that you didn’t want to know about, but you watched it anyway? I get that feeling lately when I turn on the TV to watch a Town Council meeting. “Breaking Bad,” said to […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 16, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/16/breaking-inauspicious/