Bolin Creek Greenway Master Plan enters phases 3 and 4, Town asks for community input

The Bolin Creek Greenway Conceptual Master Plan, adopted in 2009 by the Town of Carrboro, is now entering phases 3 and 4.

The Carrboro Town Council has asked for community engagement to decide which path option the town should choose to complete the existing Bolin Creek Greenway, Catherine Lazorko, the communication and engagement director for the Town of Carrboro, said. 

The three path options — called alignments — are the Creekside Alignment, the Upland Forest Alignment and the Bolin Connector Alignment.

Lazorko said the Town has been boosting engagement from the community by attending festivals and town events and discussing the greenway with residents of Carrboro.

The Town is also collecting public opinion about the greenway through a 26-question survey, which more than 1,200 people have filled out so far, Lazorko said.

“Our greenway survey has received the highest engagement of any public survey I've ever seen,” Lazorko said.

Nick Lytle, a Carrboro resident and the writer of a Triangle Blog Blog article on the greenway project, said he thinks the Creekside Alignment is the best option.

He said the Creekside Alignment is the only choice currently supported by UNC — a major stakeholder in the project. This path requires fewer trees to be torn down than the Upland Forest Alignment, and it serves the largest number of Carrboro neighborhoods, Lytle said.

Lytle said he was part of a group that put up signs around Carrboro to fill out the survey. But, he said they were torn down and left along the road.

Rob Crook, a Carrboro citizen who lives near Bolin Creek, said he has worked with Friends of Bolin Creek for many years. He said he was an advocate for the beginning phases of the Bolin Creek Plan to be implemented. He also said he prefers an alignment using the forest or railroads over the creekside for phases 3 and 4.

“Paving along Bolin Creek is bad environmental policy," Crook said. "It's a bad use of public funds. And it's just not going to provide any climate resiliency."

He said that the Creekside Alignment would be “paving over a sensitive ecosystem” beside the river and is also in clear violation of the Jordan Lake Rules passed in 2009.

Carrboro Mayor Damon Seils said the Jordan Lake Rules will not prevent the completion of the greenway. 

Diane Robertson, a member of Bolin Forest Climate Action, said the Town should not pave any alignment through the forest and that the Town is using the term “greenway” very loosely.

“My opposition to this plan and this project is not a pro or con about greenways, it is against putting an impervious hard surface in the natural area along Bolin Creek,” Robertson said. 

She said the area beside Bolin Creek is a floodplain and that the addition of a concrete path would disrupt the environmental function of filtration and, consequently, affect the water quality of the creek. She said that, though she does not want a hard-surface path anywhere in the forest, she is especially not in favor of the Creekside Alignment.

Seils said the public debate comes down to whether or not the Town should provide a safer, more accessible path beside Bolin Creek than what’s already there or if a path should be built somewhere else in the forest. He said that any of the greenway alignment options will serve the same purpose.  

“They serve to provide safe, dedicated, accessible paths that connect neighborhoods and connect the schools and connect to the downtown,” Seils said.

The last day to fill out the Bolin Creek Greenway survey is Oct. 2, and the Communication and Engagement Department will present the data from the survey to the Carrboro Town Council on Oct. 17, Lazorko said.

@DTHCityState | city@dailytarheel.com 

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the name of Carrboro's Communication and Engagement Department. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for this error.