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r <br />r <br />MEMORANDUM <br />TO: Jerry Passmore, Aging Director <br />C: Gene Bell, Acting Planning Director <br />FROM: Sladek Calip, Transportation Planner <br />DATE: March 23, 1998 <br />SUBJECT: Background information regarding the possible designation <br />of the Northern Human Services Center Southern Parking Lot as a <br />Regional Park & Ride Lot. <br />This memo is intended to document the actions taken to date to <br />designate the southern parking lot of the Northern Human Service <br />Center a regional park and ride lot. <br />The 1995 Orange County Trans ortation Priority List requested a park <br />and ride lot north of the town of Hillsborough on NC 86. A park and <br />ride lot is warranted in this vicinity because people are more prone <br />to carpool and vanpool when the length of time for their commute is <br />20 minutes or more. The purpose of the P &R Lot is to reduce some of <br />the traffic on Churton- Street. <br />Also requested in the 1995 Orange County Transportation Priority List <br />by the Orange Public Transportation System were Bus Turn Outs on both <br />sides of NC 86 at the Northern Human Services Center. No work was <br />done on these requests during 1996. <br />In early 1997 in a meeting with NC DOT personnel on the status of the <br />requested 1995 improvements (NC 86 P &R Lot and Bus Turn Outs) it was <br />mentioned by NC DOT that the request for a P &R Lot would be tough to <br />fund due to the cost of right of way. It was during this discussion <br />that it suggested that the two requests be combined in the form of <br />the southern parking lot of the Northern Human Services Center <br />becoming a Regional P &R Lot. On March 27, 1997 the directors of the <br />Public Works Department, Department on Aging and Parks and Recreation <br />Department met at the parking lot and agreed that the parking lot <br />should be paved and that a regional park and ride lot would not <br />conflict with the programs that they operate at the Northern Human <br />Service Center. <br />Then Mr. John Watkins, NC DOT Division Engineer, visited the site and <br />estimated that it would cost approximately $ 47,000 to pave the lot. <br />NC DOT has taken no further action on this project. NC DOT further <br />requested that cars parked in the lot be counted in an effort to try <br />and estimate the current usage of the existing parking area as an <br />informal P &R Lot. The counts were performed by an Orange Public <br />Transportation driver and revealed that there were from 1 to 15 cars <br />parked in the lot (in the spring of 1997) depending on the time of <br />day. <br />M <br />