Triangle Regional Rail Back on Track

A Plan for Commuting in 2020

February, 12, 2008 , by Chad

Back in 2005 the headlines were saying Regional Rail In Peril and Easy, cheap rail proves elusive. On Monday, The Special Transit Advisory Commission’s recommendation of the triangle rail set those headlines as past circumstances. Although, that doesn’t mean the rail will now be easy… or cheap.

In 2020, the year slated for the launch of the triangle regional rail, the population may be expected to rise towards 1.5 million throughout the triangle. The $2 billion project will bring about 120 buses and 56 miles of tracks to usher commuters to Chapel Hill, Durham, Research Triangle Park, Cary, downtown Raleigh and North Raleigh.

There are three sections that the rail system will be comprised of—A 21-mile corridor along U.S. 15-501 from Chapel Hill/ UNC Hospital to Durham/ DukeMed; a 28-mile rail corridor between Durham/ DukeMed and downtown Raleigh; and a 10-mile downtown Raleigh to Interstate 540/ Northeast Raleigh rail corridor, which follows along Capital Boulevard.

The approval was reached by a consensus of a three-county citizens advisory group. Towards the end of February the recommendations will be available for public comment. From there, the recommendation will move to Wake, Durham and Orange county councils where the new local taxes will be considered to fund the project.

It might be difficult for triangle citizens to accept the benefits of new taxes that won’t have an impact for over ten years to come. So far, the plan for raising this money is laying heavily on drivers. Bob Geary has written a detailed article about the financial hurdles of this plan, and states:

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.

While this plan is the first recommendation, the citizens advisory group is also expected to propose more bus, rail and streetcars through 2035.

In a recent N&O article, George Cianciolo, co-chairman of the 29-member advisory panel is quoted as saying, “We have to solve our problems now rather than pass it on to the next generation to do 20 or 30 years down the road. So I think it’s very important for people to take a look at this and say we can do it.”

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