Chapel Hill encourages employees to drive less with transportation plan

The Town of Chapel Hill is now being recognized for its efforts to help employees that aren’t able to park near their places of work.

On September 28, the Chapel Hill Town Council will be presented with two awards for its Transportation Management Program (TMP) for Outstanding Public Sector and Outstanding Marketing and Community Outreach.

The TMP is an effort by the town to get business and town employees to use alternative forms of transportation in lieu of public parking.

In 1991, business owners wanted to open up shop in the building that now houses Top of the Hill, but didn’t have the required parking space for its employees — thus the TMP was born.

Len Cone, the Community Outreach Coordinator for the Chapel Hill Department of Planning and Sustainability, said whenever there are new buildings, employers can use the TMP instead of offering parking.

“The TMP is sometimes adopted by a business when there is not parking available for both staff and patrons,” said Cone. “The TMP now is often adopted by businesses voluntarily to make things more green, and make it a more active community.”

One such business owner of Top of the Hill, Scott Maitland, said he takes part in the biannual TMP report by surveying his employees on how they get to and from work, what their reasons are for transporting themselves this way and asking what it would take them to engage in an alternative form of transportation.

“It’s an interesting effort,” said Maitland. “As a result of the nature of the urban downtown, people are going to avoid parking.”

The TMP now consists of 107 buildings, 178 employers and 4,912 employees.

According to the Guide for TMP Development, business owners are required to have a site coordinator that helps employees find alternative forms of transportation, including Chapel Hill’s fare free busing, walking, bicycling, carpooling and other systems such as Go Triangle.

In 2013, 84.8 percent of employees who participate in the TMP drove only themselves to work, which contributed to traffic congestion and carbon emissions.

Isaac Park, the owner of the newly opened Ms. Mong restaurant on Franklin Street, said he was supportive of fewer cars and alternative forms of transportation.

“Almost all my employees take the bus to work,” says Park. “A lot of their schedules revolve around when the buses come through.”

When asked how many more TMP sites she believes the town needs, Cone replied with a smile, “Double to triple the amount.”

@mrjohnfoulkes

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