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<br />hundreds of Orange County residents who travel an Eubanks Road on a daily basis. Those <br />residents and their concerns and safety have not been addressed in this report. <br />The traffic study done in 2005 includes no update on the new homes in this area -and <br />no projection of the hundreds of new residences being planned at Chapel Watch, at the Greene <br />Tract, and other nearby sites. In addition, schools, parks, the Chapel Hill public works facility <br />and businesses are already being planned which will generate thousands of additional trips <br />daily. <br />After seeing the totaled car of a neighbor who was hit by an 18-wheeler while waiting on <br />Elliot Road at the Franklin Street traffic signal near Whole Foods, you would not want to be <br />waiting on Eubanks Raad to make aleft-hand turn onto Martin Luther King Boulevard when a <br />75- to $0-foot long tractor trailer attempts to make the sharp curve onto Eubanks. My neighbor's <br />driver's door was crushed in by a delivery truck trying to make a simple 45-degree turn. <br />Thankfully, she suffered only minor injuries. <br />The report lists a dozen or so solid waste trucks making the trip each day. This is <br />incomplete and attempts to minimize the number of collection and tractor-trailer transfer trucks <br />which will be using Eubanks, not just today, but in the future. With 6 to 10 collection trucks filling <br />each of the transfer trucks, we know that the number is far greater. <br />While each of you may be tempted to make a decision tonight and be done with it -the <br />reality is that a decision based upon incomplete and inaccurate information will only push the <br />problems with this plan into the future -when they are greater and more difficult to deal with. It <br />will not solve them. <br />For those of you who do not drive on Eubanks on a day-to-day basis, it would be easy to <br />miss the problems which will be generated. It is essential that we make a decision tonight that <br />gives due consideration to the safety and welfare of our residents at the northern edge of <br />Chapel Hill and Carrboro. <br />This Board asked for input from the towns, but did not give either the Chapel Hill or <br />Carrbora elected officials sufficient time to provide meaningful input on the affect of building a <br />waste transfer station so close to many of their residents, and along a thoroughfare which will be <br />used by future Carolina North associated residential and business traffic. <br />An up-to-date comprehensive traffic study needs to be made to consider the cumulative <br />affects of adding new residences, the County Animal Shelter, our newest elementary school, <br />and future school buildings, parks, and businesses along Eubanks Road to the existing traffic. <br />The 2005 count no longer accurately reflects the traffic along the corridor and cannot be used in <br />good conscience as we decide this matter. <br />Many of the traffic problems in Orange County today are the result of poor planning. <br />Improvements at so many locations have been much more costly because of that lack of <br />planning. <br />We can and must learn the lessons from our past mistakes if we are to avoid paying the <br />cost -not only in taxpayer money, but also in community goodwill and safety - in the future. If <br />the waste transfer station goes somewhere else, so does all of the solid waste traffic associated <br />with it - by far the source of most landfill-related traffic. <br />We owe it to the residents of the Eubanks Road area to do our homework and to do it <br />completely. Conduct a genuine search for an appropriate site far the County waste transfer <br />station that will not create more problems than it will solve." <br />Tracy Kuhlman said that there was misleading information that the County <br />Commissioners received about the process that was used to recommend the Eubanks Road <br />site. She said that the memo from Jan Sassaman states that the SWAB considered almost all <br />of the criteria outlined in the EPA's document entitled, "Waste Transfer Stations, A Manual for <br />Decision Making." She said that the detailed minutes of SWAB meetings paint a much different <br />picture. She said that in the February 2006 meeting the SWAB members identified the task, <br />which was to make a recommendation of the location of the transfer station. This was <br />