Triangle cities manage infrastructure growth amid population increase

Thanks to relatively low living costs and economic opportunity, North Carolina has seen a 600,000-person population increase since 2020, Carolina Demography Director Nathan T. Dollar said. 

Collectively, Durham, Wake, and Orange counties make up nearly 15 percent of the total migration. 

Raleigh, and the Triangle area in general, is consistently listed as one of the top five or top 10 best places to live, City of Raleigh Mayor Pro Tem Stormie Forte said. Likewise, she said the region often ranks high for things like starting a business or raising a family, making it attractive to a younger demographic. 

With the influx in migration, North Carolina cities have had to adapt their infrastructure to address issues like housing affordability and increasing commute times, N.C. Sen. Graig Meyer (D-Caswell, Orange, Person) said. 

“The biggest challenge associated with accommodating this level of growth is managing growth," Durham City Council member Nate Baker said. "It's making sure that we are growing in an environmentally, socially and fiscally sustainable way." 

The Town of Chapel Hill has several projects in the works that will provide better access to alternative transportation options through the Everywhere to Everywhere Greenways initiative. 

One of those projects includes a bus rapid transit system, which will follow the current North-South bus route. Projected to begin construction in 2029, the NSBRT is intended to bring dedicated bus lanes, high capacity vehicles and improved bus stations to the busy corridor. 

“We want to get people away from long, polluting commutes and into shorter commutes and better use of public transit and bike and pedestrian transit pathways,” Meyer said. 

Forte said they have similar initiatives in Raleigh. 

“We're definitely working on making improvements with our transportation infrastructure," Forte said. "We're bringing bus rapid transit lines through several corridors in Wake County, making it very much a multi-modal type of environment." 

To address housing shortages, Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson said the Town plans to build 485 housing units each year as part of its Complete Community Strategy. The initiative works to meet the Town’s changing housing needs and bring diverse development projects to the area. 

“Particularly around the cost of living, there's been a lot of worries throughout the Triangle from long-standing folks that people who are coming here are driving up the cost of living [and] driving up real estate prices,” UNC assistant professor Ashley Hernandez said. 

The Town of Chapel Hill has been working to mitigate this through the Affordable Housing Plan and Investment Strategy, which focuses on reducing barriers to building homes, expanding and preserving affordable homeownership and rental housing, and increasing its staff and funding capacity. 

As part of this strategy, a $20 million affordable housing loan fund was launched in February to support the preservation and creation of 600 affordable housing units. 

Baker said that a big challenge is ultimately leveraging the growth for good instead of letting it overtake the community, making sure that new residents aren’t kicking out old residents or that high-income residents aren’t kicking out low-income residents. 

“I'm not surprised that we see a lot of people wanting to be here, and we want to make our town a welcoming, inclusive place," Anderson said. "We want to be the place that we aspire to, and so we're going to continue to work hard to make sure that we are a place that people can be part of." 

@DTHCityState | city@dailytarheel.com