"Going Round In Circles Over Traffic Fix" - NPR

We ought to have them everywhere.

New York Writes Itself

Why not something like this for Chapelboroham?

"Chapel Hill’s 'The Edge' development could bring national retailers"- The Daily Tar Heel

Where are the opportunities for local businesses? Is anybody interested as business person or customer? And what about how this design fits for walkers and bikers and people taking a bus? Where is that plan? Who are the people really behind this? Even this provides none of those answers.

"Taking the car out of Carrboro and Chapel Hill" - The Daily Tar Heel

The problem is so much more fundamental than this. The community simply was not designed and had not grown up to be the right scale and organization for people walking or biking; it is, like most, a community designed for cars. Unless we address that flaw, we'll never solve a lot of problems.

"Lund, a Swedish College Town With Some Viking Mayhem in Its Past" - NYTimes.com

Imagine life here with so few cars! It's nice to imagine, but so very frustrating to come back to reality.

WHITE, Rodney - Southern States - Carrboro

Rodney WHITE, one of the people of Chapelboroham.

"The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence - William M. Rohe" - Amazon

Probably a great book, but a little expensive and on Kindle version.

"Study Finds Higher Number of Pedestrians Hurt by Bikes" - NYTimes.com

I wonder what happens here?

USPS

The PO in Carrboro closes at 4 and when I tried to use the automatic machine inside for a certified letter, it kicked me out twice and I could not make it work. They need to do better despite the challenges that the institution is facing.

"Town of Chapel Hill Economic Development · Open for Business"

It's always surprising to me that the stuff on this site always gets pushed to people out0-of-town and rarely affirmatively shared with those of us who live here.

Whether this will bring more business is hard to say. It is not likely to hurt, but it is a small tool in doing a very big job.

"Has kudzu met its match in tiny bugs that feast on the vine?" - jacksonville.com

Lots of bugs threatening us, from the one linked above to this one.

Cellphones while driving

My prediction is that nothing meaningful will come of this during the meeting this evening, and I decided it was not worth the effort. If stupid people assume the risks and accept the consequences of driving and using a cellphone at the same time, I guess it's just up to the rest of us to try to stay out of their way.

Here is the result:

"Regulate Cell Phones by Operators of Motor Vehicles: The Council voted to pursue enactment of a local ordinance to regulate the use of cell phones while driving. Next, the Council requested a full report on the issues related to detection of violations, enforcement and other issues. Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos said he would request an opinion from the NC Attorney General on the authority of a municipality to regulate the use of cell phones by motor vehicle operators on Town streets and State highways within the municipality. If the Council wishes to pursue the matter further, it would call a public hearing to receive further public input."

I wonder if the draft is due this decade or the next? Can you imagine how long this will languish before going anywhere?

"Durham Hosts Paper Shredding & E-Scrap Recycling Event Oct. 2"

Very nice. We should be doing this all over Chapelboroham.

I see that this is last year's event, but have seen another promoted on television in recent days for Northgate Mall, as well, in a couple of weeks, I think. No link that I can find on a quick search.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One of the things that we really know little about are the ways and reasons that people think about, or go, to various parts of the community. If we understood appeals and turnoffs better, if we knew more about why people are or are not going places, to see or not see other people, we'd learn so much about how business and government could serve them better.

Rather than complain about Weaver Street construction in Carrboro, let's use it as a way to understand opportunities.

Rather than just watch a lot of people on fairly rare occasions at Southern Community Park in Chapel Hill, let's focus on why they are there, how they come, whether they stop en route, and what bothers them, what interests them and what could be better.

Just to pick two examples.

Employing some people just to ask questions and write about responses would be a nice job for them and a big help to everyone else who makes any sort of decision from walking or driving to buying or selling everything from an office building to a blueberry.

Another example. Some people are avid about riding bicycles in the area. That's great. But how much shopping or other patronizing of stores and services do they do on their bikes? Do we need heavier duty transport bikes either to be pedaled or fueled by solar electric? Those sorts of thinking and asking analyses never seem to happen, or at least I never seen them reported.

In Nice, where I also live, we have rental electric cars and bikes provided by the City at an affordable rate. That's an idea worth studying for here too.

IBM Press room - 2011-09-08 IBM Global Commuter Pain Survey: Traffic Congestion Down, Pain Way Up - United States

The Daily Tar Heel :: Orange County uses commercial to advertise new quarter-cent sales tax

I look forward to a link to the explanation of why the increase is a good idea.

"More Children Living in Poverty" - NYTimes.com

NC does not look good on these maps, but I have not yet looked up the specific numbers for the state - this only shows that on two of them, we are in the worst category.

One Path to Better Jobs - More Density in Cities - NYTimes.com

Suggestion for Chapel Happy Magazine

There are three principal sources of money to get our economy in NC going again. One is the government on all levels and that does not look promising. A second are companies, and they are prudently hesitant, rightly or wrongly. The third, and least pressed, are the rich people among us with hordes of money that they keep in various murky mattresses.

How about getting the Chapel Happy Magazine (aka Chapel Hill Magazine) on their trail? Ask them - the rich - how they are spending more in NC in ways that support jobs? Surely, that ought to fit squarely in that publication's focus on how wealthy people can smile at one another in fancy clothes.No?

Linked above is the calendar for release of state data, apparently next up is 16 Sep. A great date to announce release of the first list of people and where and what they have spent.