pedestrian

You may remember last fall when I moved about 1/2 a mile north from my old home downtown and suddenly found myself feeling like I was miles away from town. For the thousand or so people like me who live near Umstead Drive, Village Drive, and Estes Drive Extension, the only way to walk downtown involves a 2-mile hike up MLK Boulevard or a cut through the woods around Estes Park Apartments to Pleasant Drive in Carrboro.

Well, the Town of Chapel Hill was two steps ahead of me and was already planning an extension of the Bolin Creek Greenway that would connect Umstead Park and our neighborhood to Northside (which is just across the creek), the future Carolina North campus, and MLK Blvd. Importantly, this extension will also connect my old neighbors in Northside to University Mall (the Greenway's eastern terminus).

It's been a bad week for non-motorized transportation. On Monday, one pedestrian was killed on 15-501 south of town and another was injured* on West Franklin Street. And then yesterday a bus carrying the Boston College men's basketball team hit and killed a pedestrian on highway 54 near Meadowmont.

* Police say the pedestrian was at fault in this case.