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I live within biking distance from UNC and bike to work every day. Can easily do my shopping biking home. On rainy days, the busses in Chapel Hill are always on point. The car is more for recreation on the weekends, if I'm meeting up with friends in Durham or Raleigh perhaps.
The place where I live isn't what I'd call aesthetically appealing though. Definitely a budget apartment. Industry nearby, dumpy looking outside. Purely functional while I save up and live alone.
There are relatively nice places I could afford in good locations in Raleigh and Durham but I'm anchored to UNC at the moment. Daily life is urban, but I do end up spending time driving to the other downtowns in the Triangle.
How is the bus service in chapel hill compared to Raleigh? It seems a bit better. At least from what i see.
For many, it's not just about living the urban life 24/7; it's just nice to have it close by when you want it. One of my favorite hobbies is bike riding into uptown via the light rail trail with my son. When the weather is good, we'll do a round-trip bike ride from Scaleybark Station to 7th Street. When the weather turns bad, we'll simply take our bikes onto the train.
While uptown, my son (11 years old) and I have the options of Discovery Place, Imaginon, Romare Bearden Park (he likes to splash in the water fall with other kids), a Knights game, bowling at Epicentre (kids bowl for free during the day on certain days ), a movie at Studio Movie Grill, or Rays Splash Planet's small indoor waterpark. I just have to remember to pack us a dry change of clothing; a wet bike ride back home is something dad will NEVER do again.
I'll admit though, there are a few suburban destinations in Charlotte that my son and I LOVE as well...
Another thing that's often overlooked is Charlotte's relatively short drive from many interesting places. In addition to bike riding through uptown Charlotte on a regular basis, we've also toured downtown Winston, downtown Charleston, downtown Asheville, and downtown Greenville on our bikes (with downtown Greenville being the biggest surprise of them all).
Yes, yes, YES, downtown Greenville (of all places) could teach Charlotte and Raleigh a few lessons on how to build an interesting downtown. Y'all should check it out sometime if you haven't already (that's Greenville, SC for our Raleigh folks who might think I'm talking about NC's Greenville). The last time we were in Greenville (about a month ago), I noticed that B-Cycle has a bike share program there; similar to B-Cycle's Charlotte bike-share.
I have heard good things about DT Greenville S.C. never been there. Will have to check it out.
Which brings up an adjacent issue. Many preexisting poorer and blue collar residents of center cities are no longer able to live there, as their housing is demolished for new, swanky, luxury condos and town homes. Even if poor people can stay in swanky new center city neighborhoods, they often cannot afford the services and stores that are setting up shop in their old neighborhoods. Gentrification has good and bad points, but poor people often are priced out.
I'm afraid that's happening slowly but surely here too. Best example the Lincoln. Being built east of DT. VERY few if any can afford the rents they will be charging. When first announced market rate. But with the luxury boom they couldn't help but jump on the bandwagon! The new walnut terrace and new Halifax court have mixed incomes but most poor people get pushed out. With lots of poorer people using public transit you would hope the could live closer to downtown. I was one of those people years ago. I think that why I love my car so much.
How is the bus service in chapel hill compared to Raleigh? It seems a bit better. At least from what i see.
The buses in Chapel Hill are great. They have good tracking services online--you can see where the bus is physically and plan going to the stop. The main hub stops have electronic ETAs for all the lines. The lines run frequently until 7:20 pm and then run hourly until 11. It's not 24 hour service, and the weekend schedule has different lines which is very frustrating sometimes, but it's difficult to have a bad feeling about riding a free bus with no fare.
I think if Raleigh moved to fully tax-subsidized buses, and made the necessary infrastructure improvements, they'd get ridership levels well beyond the threshold they need to show that light rail is worthwhile.
What does this have to do with anything. Because I didn't include Atlanta. I prefer Charlotte's ie that's why I said best in the South. Not about to go there with you and everything isn't about ATLANTA.
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