The Dawn of a New Age of Traffic Flow in Chapel Hill
Woohoo, on Monday, construction will begin on turning our local intersection of US-15/501 and Erwin Road/Europa Drive. This bit of construction has its own special page with flashy animated graphics on the NCDOT website, and it will feature a "superstreet."
Oddly, the new superstreet appears to actually increase the number of traffic lights that one would pass through on US-15/501, which I guess does have the advantage of being counterintuitive. Though this intersection and the nearby interchange with Franklin Street together are somewhat nonstandard, I don't think they are especially confusing or difficult to use. The vast majority of my trips through this intersection have been straight through on US-15/501, and to be honest, I've never felt that this interestion is a source of traffic delay. If NCDOT wanted to improve traffic flow, I think simply timing the lights at the I-40/US-15/501 better would be a much simpler and more cost effective. That's where I always feel the delay. While not a great leap forward in roadway design theory, it would speed traffic flow from Chapel Hill to Wal*Mart with the benefit of not actively discouraging driving from Europa Drive to Ewrin Road or turning left onto either of these road or accessing the frontage roads on US-15/501. True, I have never "studied" this intersection, but I'd think that if it were broken, it would be more obvious.
Oddly, the new superstreet appears to actually increase the number of traffic lights that one would pass through on US-15/501, which I guess does have the advantage of being counterintuitive. Though this intersection and the nearby interchange with Franklin Street together are somewhat nonstandard, I don't think they are especially confusing or difficult to use. The vast majority of my trips through this intersection have been straight through on US-15/501, and to be honest, I've never felt that this interestion is a source of traffic delay. If NCDOT wanted to improve traffic flow, I think simply timing the lights at the I-40/US-15/501 better would be a much simpler and more cost effective. That's where I always feel the delay. While not a great leap forward in roadway design theory, it would speed traffic flow from Chapel Hill to Wal*Mart with the benefit of not actively discouraging driving from Europa Drive to Ewrin Road or turning left onto either of these road or accessing the frontage roads on US-15/501. True, I have never "studied" this intersection, but I'd think that if it were broken, it would be more obvious.
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