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The Daily Tar Heel

Opinion: Chapel Hill has made downtown friendly to visitors

S tudents who have spent more than a semester on campus sometimes take their intimate knowledge of locations on and around campus for granted.

Parents, prospective students and other visitors to campus are often left wandering without directions around Chapel Hill.

The town’s new signs giving directions to hot spots in the area are a helpful addition for pedestrians and reflect a town leadership that is in-tune with the realities of visiting and living in Chapel Hill.

The signs also have the advantage of encouraging environmentally friendly behavior.

The signs, which will be strategically placed in nine different locations on Franklin and Columbia streets, give rough directions and estimated walking distance in minutes to popular and historic sites in Chapel Hill.

Though it may seem like a marginal improvement to a visitor’s overall experience, there’s more to selling the town to non-residents than being aesthetically pleasing.

Considering the general state of the lower quad this semester, these signs are a solid and cost effective improvement to making visitors’, as well as incoming students’, experience in Chapel Hill problem-free.

The signs should help, but locals and students can go further; if you encounter a confused-looking family poring over a campus map, don’t be afraid to lend a hand.

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