History
Chapel Hill, or at least the town center, indeed sits atop a hill--originally called New Hope Chapel Hill after the chapel once located there. The Carolina Inn now occupies the site of the original chapel. The town was founded to serve the University of North Carolina and grew up around it.
In 1968, only a year after its schools became fully integrated, Chapel Hill became the first predominantly white municipality in the country to elect an African American mayor, Howard Lee. Lee served from 1969 until 1975 and, among other things, helped establish the town's bus system. Some 30 years later, in 2002, legislation was passed to make the local busses free of charge to residents and visitors alike. Free rides boosted ridership from roughly 4,000 to 25,000 daily passengers. The rationale for this was many fold:
- ever-diminishing availability of downtown and university automobile parking due to a constant stream of building and an exploding student population,
- more riders mean more federal transportation funds,
- pollution control
- increasing the fees for on-campus parking up to $1000 per year (for those making over $100,000), thus raising more money for university. This also makes it more desirable to use the bus service.
Fare-free bus funding came from a 2001 student fee increase of $16 per year, new federal funds made available to the town by pooling it's funding with regional transportation services, and increased funding from the university for routes serving the university.
In the latter part of the 20th century, the town grew considerably and became wealthier, with a higher proportion of its residents working at jobs not related to the university.
External links