As expected, on Tuesday night the Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to discontinue the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project. After a failure of negotiations, this step formally discontinues the project and begins a process to reallocate the funds that had been allocated to the light rail project through an amended Orange County Transit Plan.

That process will involve lengthy conversations with community members and potential partners. A lot of time and effort, and difficult negotiation lie ahead. For me, it’s time to pause and consider what has been lost.

OrangePolitics Emeritus Editor and Carrboro Mayor Pro Tem Damon Seils wrote the following thread on Twitter on January 13, 2019. We have curated the thread below, which calls attention to what we must do in our communities to combat climate change. It's an important read.

Snow blankets our streets and sidewalks and covers the ugly. For a brief period of time there is a quiet beauty in cities and towns. Snow also acts as an important indicator of usage, if we choose to pay attention and use this information to improve our infrastructure. On streets, the snow reveals how narrow a lane can be, and how slip lanes (a bane of pedestrians) are unnecessary and can prototype, to transportation planners, where they can be easily eliminated.