Update 11/18/22: Carrboro Board Reopens Paving Along Bolin Creek
At a Carrboro Town Council meeting last fall, the Town Council voted to reopen a community discussion about a 14-year-old proposal to consider a paved bikeway along Bolin Creek as a transportation corridor. This proposal will be discussed again despite strong community opposition, many subsequent and preferable alternatives having been proposed, and most importantly, the environmental damage that would be done to Bolin Creek by creating a 30-foot clearing through Bolin Forest very close to Bolin Creek for several miles (between Homestead Road and Estes Extension.) NEXT, a local political group, is urging the adoption of this creek-side route proposal, without considering the many superior alternatives available or the environmental and engineering challenges involved with this particular route proposal.
In 2009, the Carrboro Town Council tabled the creek-side option and referred consideration to the Greenways Commission. This advisory board concluded in 2010 that an alternative route along Seawell School Road would be preferable. Both Boards approved several greenway alignments from the Greenway Concept Plan that satisfied environmental concerns, and those bike paths have since been built.
Better alternatives for a north/south bikeway include an “Upland Forest Trail” listed in the 2009 Greenway Concept Plan; an off-road bike-path along Seawell School Road presently up for funding by the MPO; a rails-to-trails route along the current Norfolk Southern Railway, and routes listed in Carrboro’s 2020 Bike Plan connecting neighborhood-ways bike-routes. See the numerous points of connectivity found on this map of “Existing and Planned Bike Routes bike in the Upper Bolin Creek Watershed” documented by Friends of Bolin Creek on this map.