HILLSBOROUGH - With the book closed on building the Elizabeth Brady Road Bypass, town leaders are focusing on other ways to cut traffic congestion downtown.

Churton Street from Interstate 40 to U.S. 70 - about five miles - is stop and go most of the time, and often worst in the historic district.

A 2005 traffic study projected, without road improvements, that delays at Margaret Lane and King Street could grow by more than 700 percent by 2025. The wait at Tryon Street may increase by more than 4,000 percent.

That means a trip through the downtown district that took six to eight minutes in 2005 would take drivers nearly 45 minutes in 2025.

Town leaders persuaded DOT there were better ways than the bypass to move traffic.

"We would prefer to see this money going to projects that actually might have a payoff much sooner," Mayor Tom Stevens said. "Those are not projects that DOT hasn't seen before. These can be moved up and accelerated."

Three alternatives use existing roads, and all of the projects have been submitted to the DOT's 2012-17 Transportation Improvements Program. Among the possibilities:

Extend Orange Grove Road to U.S. 70A and add a railroad underpass, bicycle lanes and a pedestrian walkway over Interstate 85. Stevens said the extension may give residents easy access to a planned Amtrak passenger rail station, too.

Realign the intersection of Orange Grove Road with Eno Mountain Road and with Mayo Street.

Make South Churton Street a boulevard through downtown, with planted medians, roundabouts, improved sidewalks, and limited traffic signals and left turns.

Other options include putting up new signs directing traffic to alternative routes and creating an in-town bus system, with stops in the business district, at the Triangle SportsPlex and at Durham Tech's Orange County campus, among other places. That could happen this year, Stevens said.

"All those things can help the local traffic flow, and if you can help the local traffic flow, and reduce that, that will help the folks who are just passing through," he said.

Jamille Robbins, of the DOT's Human Environment Unit, said officials expect to finish drafting the five-year plan by summer. In the meantime, they will return the $32 million to $45 million allotted to the bypass to the DOT's TIP fund.

Stevens hopes the town and DOT can move forward now.

"I think DOT understands and we hope will be responsive to the needs of traffic in this area," he said.

Robbins said that was why DOT dropped its Elizabeth Brady Road plan, first proposed in 1969. The project had very few supporters, he said.

Last year, more than 1,000 residents signed a petition against it, saying it would harm Hillsborough's natural and cultural resources, as well as force residents to move. Two routes would have passed through the historical Ayr Mount plantation and the Occoneechee-Orange Speedway.

"The historic properties, the river, 260-some acres of parkland that's dedicated for public use and has been privately donated - these are assets which most communities would really, really envy," Stevens said.

The third route DOT rejected would have cut through neighborhoods around Riverside Drive and Highland Loop.

Riverside is one of Hillsborough's older neighborhoods, with a diverse mix of ethnicities, ages and incomes living in moderately priced homes. Renee Price, of the Hillsborough Riverside Council, said she was thrilled the bypass failed.

"It was a landmark decision," Price said. "The DOT listened, as did Hillsborough, Orange County and the [Metropolitan Planning Organization], and they decided it was in the community's best interest."

At least one of the proposed routes would have destroyed her neighbors' homes, Price said, leaving her house in the shadow of a huge bridge.

"To many of us, the road was a monstrosity," Price said.

In all, two of the proposed routes would have taken out three to four homes and businesses, with a third route running through 14 homes and businesses. But it may have been a $1.5 million environmental impact study released in December that put the nail in the project's coffin.

The study showed the plan wouldn't limit traffic enough to justify the community's cost. The Orange County Board of Commissioners backed the no-build option, saying there were better solutions.