CHAPEL HILL - Carolina North executive director Jack Evans thinks a 20 percent reduction in parking ratios over 20 years will make the new satellite campus a transit-oriented development.

But Town Council member Bill Strom wants stricter limits on parking to promote bus ridership.

The two sides will keep working to resolve that difference Thursday night when the council and the UNC Board of Trustees meet to discuss the development agreement for Carolina North.

A recent traffic impact analysis predicts more than 23,000 drivers and more than 10,000 bus riders coming and going at the campus.

Those numbers assume the same commuting patterns currently exhibited on the main campus. The university's consultant also imagined the impact of 10- and 20-percent reductions in parking but said that would not obviate the need for widening Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive, along with other road improvements to accommodate the new traffic.

Strom would like to see if the university could further reduce the car trips and increase the transit trips by decreasing the number of parking spaces on campus.

"My interest is not in extracting blood. It's in having an implementable agreement and a shared vision for Carolina North," Strom said. "This project needs to be designed in a way that more than just enhances transit but where you know that multi-modal access is a prime filter in every decision that's made. I've been concerned that all decisions at this early point are done in a way that helps us attain that goal."

Town traffic engineer Kumar Neppalli is working with the traffic consultants on new projections that reflect further cuts in parking on Carolina North. But Evans said UNC will have to move gradually toward commuting by transit to Carolina North.

"I think what will happen if you restrict parking too much is people just won't want to be at Carolina North," he said.

jesse.deconto@nando.com or 932-8760

IF YOU GO

The Town Council and UNC Board of Trustees will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday at Extraordinary Ventures, a conference center at 200 Elliott Road in Chapel Hill.