Orange County NC Website
APPROVED 6/15/16 <br />Max Bushell explained to the Board that map ID 4 actually cannot be funded at the Regional Impact funding level <br />because it is a secondary route and is not eligible for funding, except at the Division Needs funding level. <br />Heidi Perry asked about improvements for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. <br />Matt Day explained that there are two pots of funding. There is a regional pot and a division pot. The bike and <br />pedestrian is only eligible in the division pot. Alex Castro asked, whether multi lane with pedestrian and bicycle <br />facilities is just modernization? <br />Matt Day explained that multi lane means that they are adding extra lanes so they are saying to make it a 4 lane <br />road. <br />Jeff Charles said that, while they are doing that, they wanted to go ahead and put the bicycle lanes in. As it is in the <br />MPO jurisdiction, it can potentially get funded. <br />Max Bushell explained that highway projects can get funded in any of the three categories. <br />Matt Day said that you're allowed to add bicycle as an incidental piece of a highway project. <br />Max Bushell said that NCDOT does not build roads anymore without two foot shoulders. That is the new standard <br />Matt Day added to Max's comment that the new standard applies only to a new road. Road repaving projects, Matt <br />continues, do not have to include the addition of two foot shoulders. <br />Jeff Charles said that Orange County is not going to get a lot of new roads. Everything is about resurfacing and <br />making things bicycle friendly. <br />Max Bushell suggested that ultimately what we really need to decide here is the top three projects in each category, <br />as those are the projects likely to receive funding. <br />Heidi Perry asked if this is the list they had already come up with earlier in the year? <br />Max Bushell said that no, it is not. It is the list he put together based on his assessment and the prioritization process <br />used in the last round of prioritization. Ultimately, at this level, the projects that will likely get funded are mostly <br />interchanges or highway projects. <br />Art Menius asked about the necessity of improvement on i Hwy 54. <br />Abigaile Pittman explained that the corridor study that they are doing has been designed to answer the question as to <br />what is really needed on Hwy 54. <br />Matt Day explained that what the Board needs to think about with these rankings is what they believe is the most <br />important should be ranked high. He continued by stating that since they don't have the scores, it may be advisable <br />for the group to identify the projects they don't like, and then just accept the NCDOT rankings from highest score to <br />least for the remainder of the projects, then place the projects they don't like at the bottom of the list. He stated that <br />this is what Chatham County did. <br />David Laudicina explained that he travels Hwy 54 often and in the morning it is pretty congested and that people who <br />work in Chapel Hill often times cannot afford to live there, so they are commuting and taking Hwy 54 in to work. <br />Heidi Perry asked if it is congested from the lack of another lane or because there isn't smooth traffic flow. <br />PA <br />