Carrboro Aldermen Continue Discussion About Paved Greenway

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen chose not to vote on a resolution that would have made alterations to the planned greenway near Chapel Hill High School.

Board member Randee Haven-O’Donnell said she wanted to be able to answer the concerns of the cross county team before voting on anything.

“If we go forward with this, it doesn’t suggest to the folks that have been so mightily concerned that anything really in terms of action has changed,” she said. “Were we to give it the time at least to get these answers, they would know we’re sincere in the effort to try and make a change.”

Members of the Chapel Hill High School cross country team expressed concerns when they learned the greenway would intersect and pave three parts of their race course.

In an attempt to mitigate this issue, the town worked with the school district to come up with a compromise that included the team changing its course, a greater separation between the course and the new greenway and investigating the possibility of changing the path from concrete to another material.

“Let’s be honest,” assistant coach Dave Mabe said. “There’s no compromise here. You’re congratulating yourselves on how far you’ve bent for us and the compromise is ‘hey guys, you get to fix your trail.'”

Should the town decide to scrap the project, which no board members said they were in favor of, the town would lose the nearly $100,000 it has spent on the project this year.

It would also potentially have to pay back the federal government and private contractors. An attorney for the town said the potential exposure could be between $200,000 and $400,000.

The project is also heavily funded by the Department of Transportation, and he said certain changes in the trail could cause the town to lose the funding it has already secured.

“If we change the project, such as altering the path of the project, of the easement, they would de-obligate the funds for the project,” he said.

The town would have to start the approval process over again to get back the funding it had lost. It would also have to seek approval from UNC for the new path.

Town staff will try to get back to the board next week about whether changing the trail in certain parts from concrete to some thing more acceptable for the runners is feasible.

Construction is scheduled to begin Monday, but the aldermen will address the issue again in their meeting Tuesday.

Cross country head coach Joan Mabe said she was disappointed with the aldermen’s decision and hoped some kind of rubber surface or gravel path could be put in place for the parts of the trail that intersected the course.

Carrboro Aldermen Continue Discussion About Paved Greenway

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