Phillip Barron
The Herald-Sun
Sep 21, 2004 : 9:32 am ET
DURHAM — The new American Tobacco District could be a great jump-start to revitalizing downtown Durham, but several things need to happen to realize its potential.
Right now, Durham is an archipelago of bicycle and pedestrian-friendly islands. Ninth Street, Brightleaf with West Village, downtown, Fayetteville Street near N.C. Central University; these are all bikeable and walkable areas. Each has sidewalks, some have bike lanes on the roads, and they all have that urban feel that makes you wonder why you need a car.
They are all islands, however. Islands separated from each other by fast-moving currents of automobile traffic.
The American Tobacco District, the warehouse renovation across Blackwell Street from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, joins the adjacent Bulls stadium to make yet another island of bike-ped-friendly space. Walking around American Tobacco and the Bulls ballpark on attractive, wide, tree-lined sidewalks is very pleasant. Walking from there to downtown is not so. Why? Because you have to cross two busy streets and a set of railroad tracks, all without a pedestrian traffic signal.
Lori Shakespeare, owner of the Blue Coffee Company in the heart of downtown Durham, is glad to see the warehouse space renovated but doesn’t expect much new business from its tenants. It’s not as easy, attractive, or safe as it can be for pedestrians and bicyclists to get downtown from the new district. This is true despite the fact that they are merely a block away from each other.
The opening of American Tobacco’s retail and corporate spaces provides the city of Durham with an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to revitalizing all of downtown Durham — both inside the loop as well as its periphery.
Here are four simple recommendations for establishing a safe, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly connection between the new district and the businesses inside the loop.
— The sidewalks alongside the former warehouses and the Bulls’ stadium should remain wide and well lit all the way to Pettigrew Street, and new sidewalks should be installed assisting pedestrians between Pettigrew and Ramseur, over the railroad tracks.
— Push-button crossing signals need to be installed at the intersections of Pettigrew and Blackwell as well as at Ramseur and Corcoran.
— Attractive signs pointing Bulls fans and American Tobacco employees toward the restaurant and shopping district downtown are needed on these sidewalks.
— Currently, the City’s plan is to extend the American Tobacco Trail along these wide sidewalks, sending bicyclists onto the sidewalks up and down Blackwell Street. This section of sidewalk must be striped into lanes: two lanes of bicycle traffic and a pedestrian lane. The bike path connecting West Cameron Street in Chapel Hill with Carrboro is an excellent example of how attractive and effective this simple striping can be.
Durham’s Transportation and Parks and Recreation departments are already planning many bicycle and pedestrian-related improvements downtown, but if the improvements connecting American Tobacco with downtown are not timed with the district’s grand opening celebrations, then Durham will miss an opportunity to give visitors the best first-impression it can give. If you agree that these improvements need to be accelerated, please contact the City Council to register your support.
Without these improvements, the American Tobacco District and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park will be yet another island of bicycle and pedestrian-friendly space, physically and visually separated from downtown Durham by unsafe, unattractive street and railroad crossings. It benefits both the American Tobacco businesses and downtown Durham to establish bike/ped-friendly routes to make Durham a connected city, one well-planned urban space.