To your bullet points, here are my rebuttals:

• connecting homes to schools, parks and restaurants;

We have this already. They are called roads and sidewalks.

• providing pathways for wildlife to access more habitats;

This is true of greenways built in urban environments that remove many traces of human development. But we would be doing the exact opposite in Bolin Creek. Wildlife does not need us to build pathways to travel on in those woods. If you look closely you will see is already has made its own paths. And on Monday I plan on bringing some studies by the NC State Greenways Commission that show how paved trails decrease wildlife activity. So, if your plan for the greenway hinges on the fact that if will improve “the health of the global ecosystem” you will be agreeing with me that the greenway should not be paved.

• enabling people to get places without having to drive and find parking;

This is fully possible to do now. I have not owned a car in this town for the last ten years and we have an excellent free bus system.

• providing contact with nature, which is essential for our mental well-being;

If you put a cement trail through the woods it will not be nature anymore, it will be human nature. Nature is messy, muddy, wet, dangerous, unpredictable, exciting, unknown, peaceful, un-conceptual, safe, and unlabeled. The plan provided by Greenway, Inc will ruin all of those things. It is nature right now, we can go into those woods right now.

• linking Carrboro and Chapel Hill residents with each other and with our local economy and culture.

Again, we already have roads and sidewalks that perform this function and in my opinion you are padding your bullet points. If you want to create walkable communities you should ban personal use of cars from the town. No planning involved. We will be forced to come up with ideas to solve the problem of living in a town without cars.

You are very clear on how you feel the greenway will help humans, but show very little evidence on how it will help nature. You are a planner by profession, a planner for humans. But nature does not need planning.