As part of Orange Habitat’s ongoing neighborhood engagement efforts, Orange Habitat has partnered with the Fairview Community Watch to support its visions for the neighborhood and get Habitat homeowners better connected to the wider community. Over the past year, one of our partners, UNC’s Food, Fitness and Opportunity Research Collaborative (FFORC), has facilitated several workshops focused on street safety with Fairview community members and youth interns.

Through these workshops, residents have identified several roads with traffic concerns that make it difficult for pedestrians and cyclists to navigate their neighborhood safely. The community identified Rainey Avenue as a top priority for improvement because it provides access to many community assets like the Dorothy N Johnson Community Center, Fairview Park, and a nearby bus stop, which was previously advocated for by the community.

In the Fall, residents proposed a petition to the Town of Hillsborough to take the following actions to make Rainey Avenue safer, including installing a temporary speed radar and add speed bumps to slow traffic, implement a 4-way stop at the intersection of Rainey & Torain, and add a sidewalk between Fairview Park and the DNJ Community Center. With successful advocacy efforts, community leaders received enough signatures, and the Town of Hillsborough recently installed speed bumps and the four-way stop in Fairview. Thanks to this improvement, neighbors are already seeing more people walking along Rainey Avenue. 

Congrats to the Fairview Community residents for taking action to improve their community!