Does anyone know if primaries help or hurt general election turnout? That's my biggest concern with the primaries - it's hard enough to get people to vote for local elections (or any election for that matter), so having to message it twice seems unnecessary.

I spoke to a friend at Self-Help who explained that their plans are still being developed, but that the 80-100 apartment number cited is based largely on Low Income Housing Tax Credit financing limits that make it difficult to build more than that number of units in one phase, as well as construction cost considerations. He mentioned that Self-Help expects it will not require the whole 2+ acre site to support 80-100 LIHTC units, so there may be creative ways of utilizing the entire site to serve public interests.

Todd, It's not a binary choice! Preservation Durham/DAD's proposal is for the City to sell the building to a private developer rather than incorporating it into the police headquarters. Council delayed their vote last night to find out more about that very possibility (and the others raised in the PD/DAD proposal). Governing is about gathering all data points and viewpoints and making the best decision with that information at hand. It's almost never as black-and-white, this-or-that as you make it out to be.

You may think this is ugly. I think it's dope: http://preservationdurham.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Carpenter.jpg

Lisa, can you include the proposed text amendment? Sorry if it's plannerese, but it's pretty important to know what specific UDO changes it's actually calling for.

Dual left turns on Latta = a more difficult street to cross on foot. Guess Rd is already over 100 feet wide at that intersection, which takes the average person about 30 seconds to cross. If you want to actually walk to this new mixed use development from anywhere else, you should be pushing the developer to make that intersection SMALLER, not bigger.

I agree that this is a very important election and am ecstatic that there are several great candidates to choose from. That has not always been the case. Most of all, I hope that folks get to know the candidates as best they can and VOTE!

Wonder what Durham would look like if the County had set the Eno River as an urban growth boundary...

Is anyone privy to what DCABP's vetting process entails?

I'm having a little trouble believing that an underutilized 45-space lot is hurting business that much, but who knows. I would think that there would be an increase in walk/bike trips because of the new apartment buildings nearby, the Main Street bike lanes, etc. The places I go most often (Whole Foods, Elmo's, Chubby's, and Dain's) are always packed. Ninth Street as a whole has always left me wanting more. So much of that area is lined with surface parking lots, so the walking experience is not very nice. And the one stretch that isn't constantly interrupted by parking lots and driveways (the east side of Ninth between Markham and Perry) is not very long and is, quite frankly, kind of crummy. The sidewalk is too narrow, the streetscape looks like crap, and there just aren't enough interesting businesses to make it a "destination". I do love the Regulator, but it's mostly restaurants. The same thing is happening downtown as well - so many of the new businesses are food/drink related, which makes them excellent places to get lunch, dinner, or drinks, but not so much to stroll. Parking is definitely an important to issue to get right. I'm just wondering if it's a bit of a red herring in this case.

"Second, you might argue that service and ridership are linked, but the other way around: as ridership declines, agencies cut back on hours and frequency to match demand." Whoa, who's doing that? Are there really agencies out there cutting bus hours without having to? Adjusting service levels to meet demand is one thing, but not putting those hours to better use is another. If there are any agencies doing that, please send me the money saved so that I can use it in my region. Thanks.

I don't think Yonah was arguing about coverage vs. ridership at all. What I took from his article was that if you have two identical cities in terms of geography, density, population, etc., but one city is twice as poor as the other one, that if the federal government gets out of the transit operations game, the city with the poorer population would likely not be able to provide as much service even though their need would be greater. I also don't think he argued that the federal government should provide the majority of operations funding - local governments and the customers themselves would still pay for much of the cost of service (and thus still have the largest say in how important transit is to their community). Perhaps I am misinterpreting what Yonah was saying (it would be great if he replied himself).