The Coming Wegman’s Carpocalypse
A perspective from Matt Bailey
If you live near the new Wegmans currently under construction on Fordham Boulevard — particularly if you live in Colony Lake, Bluefield or the Cooper Street area — brace yourself. The town plans to send lots of gourmet grocery shoppers speeding through your neighborhood.
In 2017, town officials were understandably excited to lure Wegmans after Performance Auto Mall chose to move to Durham. Who wants a vacant lot on their watch? Many of those first-term officials were backed by CHALT, the local anti-growth PAC that has sought to block new homes in Chapel Hill (Editor’s Note: the CHALT-PAC that was founded in 2015 underwent a name change in 2017 to Chapel Hill Leadership Political Action Committee (CHL-PAC) while continuing affiliation with the CHALT advocacy group. You can find NCSBE records here). Ironically, those same officials who decried “luxury” apartments were all too eager to fast-track their new “luxury” supermarket.
And boy, did Chapel Hill overlook some important details to get their Wegmans:
The only way to exit Wegmans will be Old Durham Road: While shoppers coming from 15-501 will be able to enter the store from two intersections, the only ways to leave Wegmans will be on Old Durham Road. Worse yet, the only obvious way back onto 15-501 will be the notoriously awkward intersection with Old Durham Road, Scarlett Drive and Sage Road by the Hardees. While there are plans to improve that intersection, those improvements will barely fix the existing traffic, If Wegmans really is the draw we’re told it is, can that intersection really handle even more cars?
To my friends on the other side of 15-501… we’ll miss you.
Acres of paved parking: Not only will most of the property be paved over for parking; Wegmans will have even more parking across Old Durham Road at the corner of Cooper Street. Wouldn’t that extra surface parking better serve us as new retail space? Does Wegmans really need more parking than the car dealer did?
Turning neighborhood streets into gourmet grocery on-ramps: It’s inevitable that traffic will increase. The only place with decreasing traffic is the rust belt. However, Chapel Hill’s plans to address the increased traffic in the Cooper Street area, Colony Lake and Bluefield neighborhoods south of Wegmans make it perfectly clear: Chapel Hill cares more about moving cars than protecting people.
The current proposal would:
- block drivers from turning onto Cooper Street from Old Durham Road,
- force residents to access Cooper Street by looping back around on Standish Drive
- install four-way stops throughout Colony Lake, which won’t stop gourmet grocery shoppers from whizzing down Standish, but will inconvenience people who live here
- throw up a few temporary digital signs to tell motorists they’re speeding
Wegmans proposal, via Town of Chapel Hill.
Worst of all, Chapel Hill didn’t even bother to tell people who live off Standish Drive about this plan when they concocted it. Colony Lake residents only had one public meeting to express their concerns.
It’s too late to fix Wegmans’ acres of impervious parking. However, there is still time for Chapel Hill to choose a better way to calm traffic in nearby neighborhoods.
The fact is, signs don’t reliably slow traffic to 25 mph if the road feels like a 45-mph road. The best way to get people to drive 25 is to make the road feel like 25.
The Project for Public Spaces has many proven traffic calming measures that not only effectively slow down cars, they also make the neighborhood a whole lot nicer for residents. Here are four of them:
1) Create new sidewalks or widen existing ones: By trimming excess roadway to create sidewalks, cars naturally drive slower because the road feels tighter. Plus, residents have safe and pleasant places to walk through their neighborhood. The town claims the Cooper Street area doesn’t have enough traffic to warrant sidewalks. Won’t Wegmans change that?
2) Create official on-street parking spaces. Driving by parked cars naturally encourages people to slow down. People already park haphazardly on Standish Drive, while motorists swerve around those parked cars. By turning makeshift parking into official marked spaces with blubs and neckdowns at intersections, those parked cards are transformed from a hazard to a traffic calming measure.
3) Incorporate raised brick crosswalks into speed tables. This style of crosswalk makes an area feel more pedestrian-oriented, which makes them more effective both as speed tables and as crosswalks. They’re also a lot more attractive than yellow speed bumps.
4) Plant trees along the road. Even if the road itself doesn’t change, a tree canopy beside the road makes it feel narrower, so motorists drive more slowly. They get a beautiful view as they drive by, too. Standish Drive would be gorgeous lined with a tree canopy.
So why isn’t Chapel Hill pursuing these proven options? I’m just guessing here, but my bet is neither the town nor Wegman’s developer wants to spend any real money to solve the problems they’re creating with their new car-oriented development.
It’s a lot cheaper to stick some signs in the ground and call it a day,
I’m not opposed to Wegmans. Far from it! They’re a solid employer and a beloved retailer that will bring both jobs and some yummy sales tax revenue to Chapel Hill.
However, the town’s antiquated approach to addressing all the cars Wegmans will bring highlights a pervasive problem at town hall: While Chapel Hill claims to be an environmentally friendly town, we still prioritize cars over people in how we design our streets.
It’s time for Chapel Hill’s streets to put people first.
“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com
After spending years mocking and castigating residents who raise concerns about the effect of new development on existing neighborhoods, Matt Bailey is now raising concerns about the effect of new development on existing neighborhoods. Welcome to the club! What accounts for this change of heart? Also perplexing is the gratuitous swipe at CHALT in the second paragraph. Of the nine council members who approved the Wegman’s project in 2017, only three were endorsed by CHALT. The majority of the elected officials who voted to approve Wegman’s were people Matt supported, such as Sally Greene, Michael Parker, Donna Bell, George Cianciolo, and Maria Palmer.
Tax revenue? Didn’t they receive a sizable tax subsidy?
North Carolina in general doesn’t design things very well, so the town is just following in the footsteps of NCDOT.
YES. YES. YES. I live in Colony Lake and have two kids who love to ride bikes in the neighborhood. There are lots of people walking dogs, etc. It’s going to SUCK.
Matt Bailey: it’s time to have a cup of coffee together instead of name calling CHALT, an organization with a track record of looking out for neighborhoods. While Wegman’s is an amazing store, the only public comments we made at the hearing was to voice concerns about traffic and the large incentives offered. Now that it is going forward, we’ve urged traffic calming and contacted neighbors when we hear of opportunities to comment. We absolutely share your concerns about the gridlock that is coming. Finally, Chapel Hill Leadership PAC is a separate entity that raises funds to help candidates. It’s not correct to call CHALT a PAC.
Either way change is coming….
Public Safety should be the priority!
Transportation and fluid processes are needed to ensure safety, so apply some common sense and look outside the backdrop of a commercial enterprise and incorporate a plan that ensures safety with regards to transportation and people and moving each entity with a sense of purposeful respect and responsibility to our community in the present frame while building the future of our community.