Long Range Transit Plan

Newly minted county commissioner (and former Chapel Hill Town Council member) Penny Rich just sent a letter (quoted in its entirety below) to Chapel Hill mayor Mark Kleinschmidt. In it she takes strong exception to the behavior of Chapel Hill Planning Board chair Del Snow, who attended a county commissioners meeting last month to speak against the implementation of the Orange County transit plan. (See OP's live coverage of the meeting and discussion of the transit vote.)

While I wholeheartedly share Penny's concerns about Del misrepresenting the town, her call for the town to remove Del from the Planning Board will probably provoke a defensive response about municipal sovereignty, which will make it politically difficult for the town to actually do anything about it. Frankly I'm even more bothered that someone in a position of planning leadership such as Del is working to undermine the large-scale community transportation planning that is so critical to our future. Either way I'd like to see some new leaders on the Planning Board, preferably who appreciate both planning and process. But only the Chapel Hill Town Counil can make that happen.

Tomorrow is the second public information session on the Town of Chapel Hill's Long Range Transit Plan.

James Carnahan wrote a great opinion piece in the Carrboro Citizen last month about the LRTP and the importance of public engagement with the questions it raises. Here's just a bit, I recommend reading the entire thing:

This document will play an important role in future investments we make in transit infrastructure, and thus in our ability to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, increase the walkability of our towns and enhance the vitality of our local economy.