Yes. For now.
Some history: NC Railroad takes a dim view of "at grade" (road level) RR crossings. They don't like them one bit. So they have a rule - whenever a municipality wants to add lanes across a track, they have to close lanes somewhere else. Makes sense from a safety perspective. (If you click, scroll to the last entry.) Morrisville added asphalt across the tracks on Morrisville-Carpenter Rd as part of the intersection improvements. Town leaders agreed to close the RR crossing on Barbee Rd to comply with the railroad's open-here-close-there rule.
Closing Barbee Rd will make traveling between Church St and Chapel Hill Rd more inconvenient, adding traffic to an already congested McCrimmon Rd. Worse, closing the east-west connector can impact public safety response times to homes and businesses in the North West part of Morrisville.
Enter NCDOT and potential stimulus funds for tunneling under the train tracks on Morrisville Pkwy. Grade separation funding is not a sure thing. But if ARRA funds are awarded, the Morrisville Pkwy tunnel will decrease the number of lanes across a railroad track by 4, giving us room to negotiate. Two of those four lanes should be offered as an alternative to closing Barbee Rd.
We'll know by December, about the time Barbee Rd is scheduled to close, whether or not the NCDOT funding request for the tunnel will be approved. The time to reopen negotiations between the town, North Carolina Railroad and Norfolk Southern is now.
Not only does the RR want to close the Barbee intersection, they want to close the Church & Chapel Hill Rd intersection! This is not acceptable. This intersection is vital and works quite well as it is, as a right in/out, and should not be closed. If the RR has it's way there will be no east-west crossing for a 2.5+ mile stretch between McCrimmon and Hopson Rd!!
ReplyDeleteThat is just crazy. Barbee Road is a very busy intersection. The road closing has to be prevented!
ReplyDeleteThe intersection is not only busy, there's so much development on Church St between McCrimmon and 54. I have to wonder if people would have purchased their home if they had known the RR wants to close both intersections.
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