New community to add considerable traffic

When the Chatham County Commissioners approved plans Tuesday for the development of the Briar Chapel community, they might have approved a ton of new traffic for Orange County.

Briar Chapel, a mixed-use community one and a half times the size of Meadowmont, off N.C. 54, has been caught up in approval stages for three years.

After many well-attended meetings and public hearings, the commissioners voted 4 to 1 to approve the development, to be located five miles from Chapel Hill.

The development will include a grocery store, school, shops and 2,389 new homes.

“Nobody can even comprehend the volume of traffic that’s going to be dumped on (U.S.) 15-501, most of it heading toward Chapel Hill and the (Research Triangle Park),” said Commissioner Patrick Barnes, the only one to vote against the plan.

Like Barnes, local officials are concerned with the amount of new traffic that Briar Chapel will bring to Chapel Hill.

“You can’t pave your way out of it,” said Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy. “There isn’t a road solution.”

Chapel Hill Town Council member Cam Hill said the numbers he received from the developers estimate that the development would result in 3,200 additional cars each morning and each night.

“I would be suspicious of those numbers,” Hill said, adding that he expects the development to create somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 new commuters.

Newland Communities, the developers of Briar Chapel, offered little financial support for building and improving roads, Barnes said.

The developers’ plans only include the addition of turn lanes along U.S. 15-501 and connecting roads.

“Newland’s taking the money and going back to the West Coast,” Barnes said.

Chatham County has not contacted Triangle Transit Authority about joining transit services as of yet, said Patrick McDonough, TTA transit service planner.

“Traffic doesn’t stop at the county border, but sometimes funds do,” McDonough said.

He added that TTA would be happy to extend services to Chatham County if the county could work out a way to share in the costs of maintaining the routes.

Chatham County also could contract Chapel Hill Transit to extend services to Briar Chapel, said David Bonk, Chapel Hill’s principal transportation planner.

Bonk said Chatham County would have to assume the entire cost of extending services to the community, much in the way that Carrboro currently does.

Chapel Hill Transit is in the process of building a new park-and-ride lot near the Chatham County line, Bonk said.

The new lot will help commuters heading to work at the University but will not affect those heading to Raleigh, Durham or RTP, he said.

Although a large factor, Briar Chapel is not the only source of new traffic for area citizens.

Barnes said the commissioners have approved the development of more than 7,000 new homes in northeast Chatham County during the last two years.

“A lot of this rapid growth destroys the quality of life that the people were trying to create,” Foy said.

In addition to growth, Barnes said some of the large homes that the new development offers will pull many people out of Chapel Hill.

“It’s pretty, it’s urban, it’s relatively quiet, the air is clean,” Barnes said. “They’re going to create the mess they’re trying to get out of.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.