All aboard for regional rail
The Special Transit Advisory Commission (STAC) went all in today, agreeing in principle to recommend construction of a regional rail transit system connecting every corner of the Triangle from Chapel Hill to Durham to Raleigh to Northeast Raleigh. That’s a total of almost 60 linear miles of track.
It was a decision, as member Mike Shiflett of Durham said, to “set a large vision” for the region’s legislators and local officials, who would then be called upon to find the estimated $2 billion-plus in capital financing needed to get the project running by the target date of 2020. With no dissents — or none stated, anyway — the STAC was thus turning away from an idea advanced recently by a few members to postpone the portion of the rail project between DukeMed and Cary, omitting service to downtown Durham and the RTP for another decade.
Postponing the middle portion of the rail line would’ve allowed the STAC to recommend a cheaper project initially. But after a lengthy discussion this morning, even the idea’s proponents acknowledged that it would undercut the regional consensus they’ve been trying to achieve. Others urged a more optimistic view of funding that could be available from federal, state and local (regional) sources as the Triangle grows. “Coming in today,” said George Cianciolo of Chapel Hill, one of the two co-chairs, “I was extremely concerned that we were losing our regional focus. … I’m very happy that there is consensus, and we need to find the money now to make it work.” –more below–***
The rail project would be built in three sections, with each given equal priority. The three:
* A 21-mile corridor paralleling U.S. 15-501 from Chapel Hill/ UNC Hospital to Durham/ DukeMed;
* The 28-mile rail corridor between Durham/ DukeMed and downtown Raleigh;
* A 10-mile downtown Raleigh to Interstate 540/ Northeast Raleigh rail corridor, which tracks alongside Capital Boulevard.
This is essentially the same project recommended by the Triangle Transit Authority’s board of directors in 1995 and endorsed subsequently by both of the region’s MPOs — the planning agencies for transportation projects in the Durham-Chapel Hill and greater Raleigh areas, respectively. (MPO stands for metropolitan planning organization, the name given to them under the relevant federal law.) However, back then the TTA recommended postponing the Chapel Hill-to-Durham segment until the others were underway. Consequently, it hasn’t been planned to the same degree as the others, and TTA and MPO staffers project that it will take about four years longer to finish. Thus, if the others open in 2016, the Chapel Hill-to-Durham portion could open in 2020, they say.
The STAC’s discussion of funding is highly speculative, since there is currently no federal or state funding committed to the project nor much in the way of local money either. All that’s in hand for it is a 5 percent tax on car rentals in the three Triangle counties which the TTA’s been socking away since 1992. To reach $2 billion in potential capital funding, TTA General Manager David King said, the region’s counties would need to establish a half-cent sales tax or its equivalent and — perhaps — some additional tax on motor vehicle registrations ($10 a year on 1 million cars would yield another $10 million a year, for example). Then the state would have to be enticed to kick in, say, 25 percent funding. And while the STAC’s been reluctant to assume that any money would be forthcoming from Washington, given the rejection of the TTA’s “New Starts” application in 2006, members had a different view of that today after hearing a determined argument from Tom Bradshaw, the former Raleigh mayor and state Secretary of Transportation who’s now an investment banker advising transit agencies all over the country. Bradshaw said the TTA’s application failed mainly because 1) the region didn’t have a robust local funding source, and 2) North Carolina’s two U.S. senators didn’t support it. Once the half-cent sales tax is in place, Bradshaw said flatly, “you will get some federal money.” He said a 50 percent federal share is common; assuming the feds would be good for 25-35 percent would be conservative.
Put it together, King said, and a $2 billion capital program is realistic. That would cover all or most of the 60-mile buildout. It wouldn’t pay, though, for local circulator systems that the STAC has imagined would attach to the rail line in Raleigh, RTP, Durham and Chapel Hill, respectively. Still completely up in the air is what the STAC will say about who should run these circulators and who should pay for them. That subject — and whether the various local bus agencies should be consolidated into a unified TTA or left to their own devices — was teed up for discussion at the Feb. 29 STAC meeting, which now becomes the third, or is the fourth, “final” meeting prior to a draft report being written.
And of course, all of this is in the form of recommendations to the public — and their elected officials — which they can take and act on or leave alone … as they choose.
February 11th, 2008 06:48
I’m happy to see the Chapel Hill is finally getting something out of this. Chapel Hill/Orange has been a stanch supporter of a regional transit system all along, without any hope of getting rail for decades. The Chapel Hill-Raleigh Express bus is one of the most heavily used bus routes that TTA has. Chapel Hill also has the best of the local bus systems(while the university is in session anyway).
I agree with Bradshaw that a half-cent sales tax would lead to federal funding, especially since Charlotte has already gotten their money based on that. If nothing else, the sales tax money could be used — as it was in Charlotte — to support the local bus systems until the state and federal funding comes through.
I wish STAC luck.