Plans to section off part of the road along Franklin Street are progressing, as the Town of Chapel Hill looks for ways to help businesses and allows patrons more space while walking downtown.
A petition from Chapel Hill community members last month garnered more than 1,000 signatures to create more space for pedestrians to safely walk and distance themselves. But this ordinance enacted by the Chapel Hill Town Council at its June 3 meeting largely takes restaurant and business capacity into account.
By setting up barriers and blocking off most of the on-street parking along both sides of Franklin Street, pedestrians would have more space to walk and businesses could set up more space for patrons to properly distance indoors and outdoors. The plan presented by the town indicated Franklin Street from Robertson Lane on the east side to Graham Street on the west side would have barriers set up.
The ordinance allows the Town Manager, Maurice Jones, to issue permits to businesses looking to use the additional outside space and make any adjustments needed for safety. It also waives permit fees while keeping all the typical requirements for sidewalk dining permits the same.
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger recently spoke with 97.9 the Hill’s Aaron Keck about the measure. She said the town had been working on an idea like this for a while and the need to help businesses as they reopen amid the pandemic led to this temporary solution.
“This is similar to what we were talking about doing with the West End [of Franklin Street] restriping anyway,” she said, “with bike lanes and a multimodal path. [Now], we’re going to try it temporarily this summer. Our downtown needs to be more pedestrian and bike friendly, with people wandering and not just driving through downtown. We’re very excited to see what this yields.”
Hemminger said the town had already been working crafting these plans when the Feet on Franklin petition surfaced and began to gain the community’s interest. She said delays were caused by the necessity of working with the state Department of Transportation, who owns Franklin Street. But with the temporary project approved by the agency and community members behind the idea, it led to a quick passing of the ordinance.
“To get that public support for something we were working on already was huge,” said Hemminger. “I love that people are excited, that shows a great interest in this. It took a while to work it through DOT and it took a while to work out the safety precautions. I’m hopefully everyone who signed that petition will show up downtown.”
The ordinance regarding lane allocation for Franklin Street and permitting for Chapel Hill businesses will be up for review by the council again at its September 9 meeting. It will begin to take shape once the DOT makes an official approval.
Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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It is a start – but a little confusing. Why this block? The only business that would benefit directly from this lane closure is Al’s Burgers – if they had moved this one or two or several blocks east, there are so many more business’ close together on BOTH sides of the street that would benefit from this. What would be even better is full blocks closed down, several of them. Leaving the cross streets for traffic. It would create town squares for people to use on foot and bike. That would be really progressive.
The article says it will be Roberson LANE (on east Franklin), not RoberTson STREET (on west Franklin). So the entirety of Franklin street will be closed down from EAST Franklin across from McCorkle Place (the quad on UNC), all the way down to WEST Franklin and Graham St.
So to help business they are going to hurt business?
People need parking not foot traffic.
Lauren, oh wow, that is different, thanks for clarifying that. That effects much more of downtown.
We do NOT need extra parking now. This will not impact our lots and decks. Traffic is light in town now for both our roads and businesses. The alumni tourism that drives our local economy will remain low until conference events and live audience sports-ball fully return. Our restaurants and businesses can not survive that long without our help. This is a TEMPORARY measure until traffic volumes return.
Please tell me that the Town will not remove the handicapped parking spots in front of Mediterranean Deli which we use all the time.