Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:46:43 -0400
From: Claire Kane
Subject: Original post on Chatham Park and Ride was correct
It is an understandable misinterpretation of the situation printed in thelast post of the July 15th Chatlist, but the changing of the bus operations from Southern Coach to Chapel Hill Transit did not open up the Chatham park & ride for public parking. Public can catch the bus route, but not park in the lot.
When the lot first opened, Chapel Hill Transit did not have enough buses to run to the Chatham lot as it did to the other lots dedicated solely to the Commuter Alternative Program. So for that first period of time, the Commuter Alternative Program participants had the service of a private bus company. These buses were from a private company and therefore purchased without the assistance of state and federal funding and not operated by the partnership of UNC, Chapel Hill and Carrboro. For that period of time, the buses were not open to the public.
When Chapel Hill Transit buses began serving the lot it became a public bus route that stopped at a UNC park & ride lot. This means, as stated in my previous post, that the Chatham bus route became open to the general public, but the parking in the lot is still not public parking.
The lot is one of 5 lots operating in this way. Universities do this all over the country. It’s worth it to note that not everyone affiliated with UNC can park at these lots either! How about that? Only those temporary or permanent employees who are given a personal identification number and agree not to park on campus are eligible to join the Commuter Alternative Program and use those lots. So if I, for example, still pay to be able to park on campus when I feel I have the need, but I also join a varpool, I can’t park in the Chatham lot or the Friday Center “CAP” lot either without risking a ticket myself. These lots are dedicated to those contract or permanent UNC employees who agree to keep their cars off campus – so they won’t park all over the neighborhoods.
The leasing or building and maintenance of these “CAP” lots are paid for by “taxes” to the staffed departments and student tuitions of UNC-ers and additional money is generated to build and maintain or lease the lots by sale of on-campus parking permits.
In case anyone missed my previous contribution (and is like me and only checks in on this chatlist periodically), there are 5 other park & ride lots operated solely by the Town of Chapel Hill. They are the Southern Village, 54 (near the Friday Center lot), Jones Ferry, Carrboro Plaza and Eubanks lots. You can get directions, bus schedules and bus route maps printed out by visiting www.townofchapelhill.org, clicking on Departments, going to Transportation, and getting to the Routes and Schedules link. If you go to www.chtransit.org, that will pop you over there too. The Town is temporarily out of paper bus route guides, as the new ones come out in mid-August.
Happy transiting. Maybe this will all be a non-issue when we have our own bus route that we can pick up closer than 15 miles away from Pittsboro! Won’t that be great? And remember, visit www.SharetheRideNC.com to see if there is a carpool or vanpool match for you out there.
Respectfully,
Claire Kane
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