Chapel Hill awarded $1 million to expand greenways

GOVERNMENT

By Carl Blankenship
Editor

CHAPEL HILL — A $1 million grant will help Chapel Hill make its ambitious greenway project come to fruition.

The grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation — as part of the department’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program — will pay for feasibility studies for the town’s “Everywhere to Everywhere” project.

The project goal is “to work toward a multimodal network of facilities that connects schools, shopping parks, healthcare opportunities and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,” according to a release from the town. The end goal is to place transportation greenways within a quarter mile of 57% of the town’s residents.

The project includes feasibility studies on the 25-mile network of greenways the town has identified as “priority corridors” and the studies will include “extensive community engagement.”

According to the release from the town, the feasibility studies will help the town secure more federal funding, identify problems and alternative routes, a conceptual design and public engagement.

The federal grant program has $1.5 billion to pay out last year and funded 166 projects.