Wake county just isn't crowded enough to support rail transit outside experts say

 I guess Wake may may not come aboard after all.  Certainly its unrealistic to  expect federal funding for LRT to serve 400,000 people in Orange and Durham.  Its not just the $30 million - For Orange County alone, its $500 million - or $165 million per linear mile. Mark Zimmerman got it right - looks like LRT is off the tracks - thank goodness!http://www.chapelhillnews.com/2013/11/11/3362250/mark-zimmerman-light-rail-plan.html Are the commissioners (and their partners in Durham, TTA and the MPO) willing to step back and rethink this?  Will town leaders support this important change?   What's wrong with an impressive regional transportation system built around Bus Rapid transit - delivered for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time - and that aligns to local land use plans and commuter needs.  Bonnie Hauser

Even if you accept assumptions and conclusions about Wake County transportation planning from representatives of anti-public transportation organizations like the Reason Foundation and the Wake County Republican Party (which I do not), you need not accept that their assumptions and conclusions are relevant to the Durham and Orange transit plans. Durham, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro have much higher transit ridership per capita than Wake has. They have higher investments in transit per capita. Their land use planning is increasingly oriented toward transit. Their largest employment centers continue to make transit-supportive decisions about parking policy and employee transit subsidies. Durham, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro are simply not in the same situation as Raleigh and Wake County. It's also important in these discussions to keep in mind that long-term transportation plans are just that: long-term transportation plans. They do not simply address current needs; they seek to address anticipated needs in the decades to come. Transportation planning -- whether it gives priority to highways and single-occupancy vehicles or provides for multiple other modes -- has profound effects on the way a community develops and grows. I'm glad that our community has consistently expressed -- through the ballot box and in other ways -- a preference for a transit-oriented future.

What great timing that tonight and tomorrow night citizens who have question and concerns about the Durham-Orange Light Rail project will have the opportunity to pose them to Triangle Transit staff. One has already occurred last night. Thank you to Mayor Pro Tem and Triangle Transit Board of Trustees Vice Chair Ed Harrison for mentioning these meetings at the town council meeting on Monday. The Orange County meeting has been on the OrangePolitics calendar for a while, but I’ll mention the remaining meetings again here for easy access.

Wednesday, November 13Eno River Unity and Unitarian Fellowship Church4907 Garrett Road
Durham, NCThursday, November 14Friday Center100 Friday Center Drive
Chapel Hill, NCSide note: I’ve found Ed to be an excellent resource for informing me about the TTA board’s work on this and related issues and I hope folks make use of his fantastic constituent services to ask him about some of the policy discussions taking place at Triangle Transit. The TTA board meetings are also open to the public and have a public comment section at the beginning of the meeting.We are lucky to have what I think are some of the best transportation, environmental, and land use planners in the country working at Triangle Transit, and I think their responses to these questions could help clear up some misconceptions which seem to be floating around in the community about growth projections, the anticipated demand for transit, and the best solutions for accommodating these transit needs, both today and in the future. I hope anyone interested in the future of the Durham Orange Light Rail corridor will attend one of these meetings and have your questions answered.

So Matt, are you in the habit of taking advice from "experts" from right-leaning libertarian think tanks and the Republican Party?  Is that the type of thing that guides your thinking about transportation and land use policy?

Matt- this is a waste of time - important voices are blocked from posting on this blog - and no one wants to deal with your question. Regardless of how you feel about the plan or LRT - at this point TTA's grant proposals have been sent back.  So should TTA be allowed to continue with its plans for LRT -with the  taxpayer assuming all the risk. That wasn't the planNancy Oates has promised an open dialog on Chapel Hill Watch and "Many" has started the discussion.  www.chapelhillwatch.comBonnie Hauser

I have to admit that I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue so I went to tonight's public meeting and listened with an open mind. What surprised me is that I can't figure out why anyone wouldn't think this is a good project. It's definitely expensive, but with a simple payback of less than 15 years, not counting the financial and environmental benefits of the carbon reduction, it seems like a slam dunk to me. The route serves two large medical complexes, three universities, multiple retail centers, and several large neighborhoods. For most of the route, existing easements are already in place reducing the overall cost of the project. The same route cannot be served by BRT. Chapel Hill Transit has already started benefitting from the extra $400,000 in funding and that's just the first year. There are also multiple safeguards built into the overall process so that we can't get too far down the road before learning that the feds won't look favorably at the funding request. It is based on population growth projections that could always change, but that's true of almost all planning efforts. We're already building other infrastructure based on those projections, so why wouldn't we be proactive on transit? If we don't do this now, it will just get harder as more development occurs. This is a very transit friendly community. Between Chapel Hill and Durham we have higher ridership than Raleigh does, despite our much smaller population. So it doesn't surprise me that Raleigh's consultants would advise against their pursuit of LRT. But I still can't figure out what the advice of those consultants have to do with Orange-Durham. Different communities, different profiles, different needs.This isn't the reaction I expected to have. I thought I would come out of the meeting conflicted. Instead they have my total support. If you go tomorrow night, make sure you spend time with the animation. It's really very informative.   

There's no expected improvement in congestion or carbon (according to the MPO.).  CHT was supposed to get close to $1 million - then $770,000  -now $400,000- what happened?  Did they cut the projected additional bus hours?Bonnie Hauser

Travis - the $400,000 came from Terri - the nearly $1million came from the plan and the $770 came from the last report from TTA to the commissioners. This is a complex plan.  Youll have to invest time in reading the appendices if you want to follow the numbers.    If you want a lesson in transparency - read Durham's plan and Orange County's plan. Durham knows exactly what its getting, for how much and in what order.  Orange's plan is rifled with possibles and the annual costs are dispersed over 20 pages of projects. Its clear as mud. Bonnie Hauser

I agree with Terri. I think it is a great project. See ourtransitfuture.com.  The focus tonight was to introduce the beginning of the Environmental Impact Statement process. It was not designed to address the questions Bonnie or Matt raised. The studies are just beginning and the public will comment after the research is presented. They will study the amount of noise the routes will produce. They did not seem to be studying its impact on bike/pedestrian trails. Part of the route goes by my son's old school (Glenwood) and will have a station on Mason Farm Rd across from where we live (Kings Mill Rd.) The route goes by several wetlands and that needs to be analyzed. I think it will be good for the region if the Orange -Durham system ties into Wake County but that is a different issue. At some of the candidate forums we were asked about the light rail transit. I know I supported it as did most of the other candidates. I think Amy and/or Maria were more interested in buses than rail. Does any one else remember? About 90 people were at the 5PM presentation.  Most of the participants were showing gray. I'll be 71 if it goes in operation at the earliest date: 2026.

Lead editorial in today's N&O http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/11/14/3371571/wake-must-advance-transit-to-advance.html Bonnie has a comment posted to it already.