Durham's East End Connector: Not a black-and-white issue

Friday brought the good news that the state Board of Transportation approved the draft Transportation Improvement Program, which includes $98.9 million in funding for Durham's East End Connector.  Over the next few years, NCDOT is scheduled to finish the planning for the road's alignment along with environmental impact analysis and to acquire right-of-way in advance of road construction, which is set to begin in 2012.  The short (less than 2 mile) project is scheduled to open in 2013.

In case you haven't been following the project, the EEC is the missing-link connector between the Durham Freeway (at the inflection point where the road turns away from RTP and towards downtown) and US 70's freeway portion leading to I-85 and North Durham.  (See this earlier post for more on the EEC.)

This is an incredibly important development for both the health of Durham's urban neighborhoods and for the long-term growth of both the city and county.  The Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) had ranked this as its highest priority through the formal planning process, as had both city and county leaders in formal and informal ways.  The vote by the City Council back in early February to support city staff's recommendation that the so-called Alignment #3 be selected for the road was a further form of support for NCDOT's proposal (which leaned heavily towards that alignment as displacing the fewest residents and having the lowest construction cost.)

Of course, Durham being Durham, the East End Connector has gotten dragged into the oldest and messiest politics of all: the age old black-versus-white debate.  The speakers during February's City Council meeting were divided almost evenly among racial lines, with residents from some of Durham's well-off urban neighborhoods supporting the EEC in the face of opposition from the East End Avenue, an historically African-American neighborhood where seven or eight homes would be impacted or taken to build the road.

Is this the Durham Freeway all over again, as Rev. Sylvester Williams and other East End Avenue community leaders would like to portray?  Not exactly.  The way I see it, the EEC is actually a key step in saving Durham's historically black neighborhoods, especially many that are historically less-advantaged than East End, along Alston, Avondale, and Holloway in eastern Durham.

It's no secret that some of Durham's more revitalized downtown neighborhoods, like Old North Durham, Duke Park, and Trinity Park, have been some of the main boosters of the East End Connector.  Currently, roads like Mangum, Roxboro, Duke and Gregson are the only accessible "through streets" between North Durham and the commercial centers of downtown Durham and especially Research Triangle Park.  I-85 is now a twelve-lane "wonderland" of expressway bliss (or automotive excess, take your pick), but unless you start out way west of Cole Mill Rd. towards Hillsborough, there's no direct link to the Durham Freeway.  Everyone traipsing in from North Durham or from Granville County has to take the city streets, start and stop, to get to NC 147.

Does this mean that the road only serves "white privilege," as was implied during the February City Council meeting?  Hardly.  Yes, today's traffic problem impacts many white neighborhoods in Durham (though it's worth noting that Mangum and Roxboro also pass through areas with more diverse populations.)  But Alston Ave. and Avondale Dr., both of which divide majority-black East Durham, also suffer from the same problems as their north-south neighbors to the west: too much traffic cutting between NC 147 and I-85; cars travelling at high rates of speed, making life dangerous for pedestrians and kids; noise and air pollution; and depressed property values.

Interestingly, many of the same voices who've supported the East End Connector are among the loudest in opposition to NCDOT's misconceived plans to widen Alston Avenue.  What urban neighborhoods in Durham need -- be they east or west, historically privileged or disadvantaged -- are calm, low-traffic roads, not high-speed thoroughfares.

And although the East End Connector has gotten the most attention for relieving north-south traffic through Durham's urban neighborhoods -- white and black -- I suspect that its presence will provide a huge relief for drivers who take NC 98, Holloway St., between eastern Durham County and the downtown/Duke areas.  Thanks partly to available undeveloped land, and partly to the retail development on the Wake-Durham line at Brier Creek, new subdivisions like Brightleaf are bringing literally thousands of homes to the Bull City east of US 70.  (Not to mention the booming development further east on NC 98, out towards Wake Forest.) 

Sure, US 70 and Miami Blvd. provide connections to RTP, but I'd wager that at their $100s-to-mid-$200s price points, these neighborhoods are highly attractive to nurses and medical staff working at Duke, whose hospital and research complex comprises the largest employment center in the Triangle.  If you've tried driving NC 98 from eastern Durham County through to downtown or Duke, you've probably noticed you're stuck at times in bumper-to-bumper traffic snaking along in front of residential homes, businesses, and a couple of parks.  The addition of the EEC combined with necessary improvements to US 70 will provide a quick, all-freeway connection between eastern Durham County and the central and western parts of the city... all the while relieving still more pressure on East Durham neighborhoods.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not thrilled that anyone's homes will be displaced by this work.  But to draw the conclusion that the EEC's impact on the East End Avenue community is no different than the impact that the Durham Freeway's construction had on Hayti is utterly ridiculous.  We're talking a small number of homes instead of hundreds... and we're talking about a project that serves to reduce traffic in and ultimately strengthen the much larger East Durham region, impacting thousands of Durham residents in a positive way.

It was disappointing to see Durham politicos claiming to be shocked -- shocked! -- that the EEC would have an impact on any residents or homeowners in the East End Avenue neighborhood.  As Barry Ragin points out in an appropriately-frustrated post on his blog (which is worth reading in its entirety -- twice), many of the players in February's hand-wringing Council session were well-quoted by the local press in their support for the road just a couple of short years prior.  I agree with the Council's move to form a committee to support the affected residents and to ensure that they're treated with dignity and fairness, but the Council has been extremely supportive of this project from day one... and shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Will community opposition block the EEC from completion at this point?  Lip service aside, I don't see anything the City and County would dare do to block the road.  As much as the EEC matters to all of the urban neighborhoods inside Durham, the long-term growth picture for Durham contradicts the old 19th-century advice about the mountain and Pacific states: this time, it's "go east."  The MPO predicts 11,000 new residents living between US 70 and NC 98 in the next three decades, with another 15,000 living north of I-85 and east of US 501 (see image at right).  Both of these are today rural parts of the county, yet both will be chock-a-block of residents in a few decades' time. The EEC, in creating both better east-west and north-south connections on the east end of Durham, is a necessity to support the growth that is, inevitably, on its way.

Comments

[East End Resident]

What? 7 or 8 houses impacted? I suggest you come take a look at the 40-50 houses they will be impacting.

[barry]

i've heard numbers ranging from 8 occupied properties up to 40. hopefully, the facts will be presented to the ad hoc committee this week.

From my perspective, the relevant facts include that the road has been on the books since 1959 and the Highway Department has been acquiring right-of-way along the corridor since at least the early '80s.

As an alternative to the Eno Loop, which would have displaced somewhere in the vicinity of 600 - 800 occupied properties, increased bad traffic conditions and made many neighborhoods less safe, while confining economic benefits to a smaller section of the community, the East End Connector makes sense for virtually all of Durham.

That's why i supported it in 2001 and 2002, when Mayor Bell helped to broker the compromise which put it at the top of the county's new road request list, and it's why i continue to support it today.

[Michael Bacon]

There's a difference between houses displaced and houses impacted. An impacted house can just be one with a freeway suddenly running through the back yard. I believe, though I am not certain, that those houses now get some manner of compensation for lost resale value.

But Barry is spot-on here. DOT was bound and determined to build some kind of major project through Durham. The EEC not only is the most sensible option, but it also is probably the least destructive one. The alternative selected has far and away the fewest properties displaced and impacted of the options examined. I've said elsewhere that I think DOT is being overzealous in making the whole thing interstate grade, rather than using the already purchased right of way and making it a 45 mph. speed route. But as someone who's been active trying to reduce the impact of the Alston Ave. widening on the community, it's really, really hard to get DOT to move sometimes.

I'll share again my idea that those of us who supported the EEC might want to consider setting up a fund to help those displaced by the EEC purchase and restore historic houses in East Durham, with help from Preservation Durham. A small number of people shouldn't have to bear the whole load for this project.

[barry]

The last i heard, the nearly $65 million in increased cost for the EEC (last year option 3 was estimated at $135 million; now it's at $200 million) is, according to NCDOT, mostly for additional right-of-way purchases.

I hope to learn more about this at the ad hoc committee meeting later this week. But if that's the case, our job will be more to make sure that money is distributed equitably than it is to find additional sources of revenue.

$65 million spread out over 40 property owners is about $1.5 million each. To my knowledge, that's not all of the budget that's for right-of-way acquisition. To the extent that money is distributed unfairly to people who are in positions to profit by means of, oh, let's say, insider real estate deals, that's a problem. And i recognize that money alone cannot compensate for the loss of a home.

But realistically, takings of this sort go on all the time, in every city and town in the US. The least we can do is make sure those who are displaced by the project are compensated equitably.

[East End Resident]

The fact remains that the original location had everything to do with race, and the process continues to be corrupt. The impact information we all have received contains outright lies to the impacts to residents. WE LIVE HERE. Alternatives 1 and 4 would have much less impact on total number of residents, look at the maps. Of course, the original alignment was selected, and they created supporting documentation that supports the decision that they had already made. I support the construction of the connector, the entire process has just been corrupt since the 1950's, and I do not support alternative 3.

[Barry]

No map that i've seen shows less of an impact on residences than option 3. This was especially true back in 2001-2002 when the EEC was being pushed to the top of the county's request list. Unfortunately at least 7, and as many as a dozen, of the now 23 residences that will be taken under option 3 have been constructed since 2003.

I have been working on the city's ad hoc committee for the past 4 months, and would appreciate hearing what "outright lies" have been reported to the residents, preferably in time for our next meeting which is, i believe, Wednesday 12/6.

[generic viagra]

I think DOT is being overzealous in making the whole thing interstate grade, rather than using the already purchased right of way and making it a 45 mph. speed route.