Students driving through Central Campus will see workers on Anderson Street this week as the city of Durham makes its scheduled repairs.
The resurfacing began yesterday morning and is expected to last a week. In addition to the resurfacing, city planners decided to permanently remove 37 on-street parking spaces and replace them with bicycle lanes, said Dale McKeel, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for Durham’s Department of Transportation.
“The street will remain open, but there will be lane closures [for sections] of the road,” McKeel said.
Bus routes and schedules will not change during or after the resurfacing, a Durham news release noted.
The project is funded by city bonds from 2005 and 2007, McKeel said. After the street was identified in 2007 as in need of resurfacing, McKeel said University officials began discussing with the city the possibility of creating bicycle lanes during the repairs to help promote sustainable means of travel.
Jesse Bendetson, a junior, is excited to use the new bicycle lanes for longboarding. But in addition to temporary motorist delays, the loss of parking spots may present an inconvenience to students with cars.
Sobia Shariff, a senior who lives near the construction site, said that she supports the initiative but will not be able to take advantage of the bike route because she drives to West Campus.
Lessening the University’s dependence on cars for transportation on campus, however, supports Duke’s goal of becoming a carbon-neutral campus by 2024, Sam Veraldi, director of parking and transportation, said in the release.
“We have more than doubled the number of registered bikers in the last year as a result of an incentive program for faculty and staff and a bike loan program for students,” Veraldi said in the release. “Creating designated bike lanes on streets like Anderson makes it easier and safer for people to travel by bike and will encourage others to give it a try.”
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