Planning & Transportation
With the rollout of regional transit plans in our area, we can see that Wake County plans 20 miles of bus rapid transit (BRT) routes. Here in Orange County, we have an 8 mile BRT route planned in additional to a proposed 18 mile light rail line connecting Durham and Chapel Hill. Should we deploy BRT as the anchor of our transit network and replace the Durham Orange Light Rail line with BRT?
First, a bit about BRT. It takes many of the things that make riding light rail transit (LRT) attractive, but uses diesel buses in dedicated exclusive roadways instead of electric rail cars on tracks. A true BRT system has stations with shelters and raised platforms like LRT. Fares are paid in advance to speed loading and buses come at regular intervals. Most importantly, a true BRT system has its own exclusive roadway. If the bus is stuck in the same traffic with cars, it’s not really “gold standard” BRT. It’s just a bus.
I emailed the Orange County Board of Commissioners a letter supporting the light rail connecting Orange and Durham Counties and am posting that letter publicly below.
The June 29, 2016, "Off the Rails" INDY Week piece by David Hudnall, which discusses the Durham-Orange light rail transit project (DOLRT) is a poorly researched opinion piece that does a tremendous disservice to INDY Week readers, residents of Durham and Chapel Hill, and—most importantly—current public transit riders in Durham and Orange counties who stand to benefit greatly from a significantly enhanced bus and rail transit network with DOLRT at its core.
GoTriangle invites anyone who works, lives, or visits Downtown Chapel Hill or Downtown Carrboro to take a survey to help evaluate transportation and parking in the two downtowns. This is important because parking needs have a major impact on planning our local and regional transportation infrastructure.
To participate, follow this link: https://www.rsgresearch.com/triangleparking
Individuals who complete the survey have the option to enter a drawing for a 16GB Apple iPad.
The survey will take approximately 12 minutes. Your answers will be kept confidential and will only be used for transportation planning purposes. This study is being conducted for GoTriangle by Resource Systems Group, Inc. (RSG), a national transportation market research firm.
Thank you for helping improve transportation throughout the Triangle region.
Feel free to contact us at triangleparking@rsginc.com if you have any questions.
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