Triangle rail plans chug on
(News and Observer – March 23, 2010)
After talking about regional rail transit for more than 20 years, leaders in Wake, Durham and Orange counties are still struggling to agree on plans that would suit each county and also fit together to serve the whole Triangle.
They're forging ahead in hope that the economy will rebound while they map out timetables for laying tracks and beefing up bus service. Meanwhile, they're looking back at one of the first ideas floated for regional rail service, back in the late 1980s.
Joe Milazzo II, executive director of the nonprofit Regional Transportation Alliance, will release three-county poll results he says are “not celebratory, but they are promising” for transit supporters.
The key premise of the failed Triangle Transit rail plan, killed by federal regulators in 2006, was a regional rail link from Durham to Raleigh through Research Triangle Park. Now, the Durham-to-Raleigh link is the central source of disagreement.
David King, general manager of Triangle Transit, has advanced the alternative of linking Durham and Raleigh with rush-hour commuter trains. That idea was floated in the late 1980s by Avery Upchurch, the popular Raleigh mayor who died in 1994.
Tony Gurley, chairman of the Wake County commissioners, says his priority is to work out a transit plan that makes sense for Wake residents - who would be contributing more than 70 percent of the region's sales tax revenue.
"I need to be confident that we're getting something that satisfies the Wake County voters first, and regional voters second," Gurley said. But Wake's interest doesn't stop at the county line. Thousands of Wake residents commute to jobs in RTP, which is mostly in Durham County.
"A Wake County plan must connect to the Park," Gurley said. "Even if it includes Wake County money being spent for a station that's in Durham County but it's at RTP, that's still a Wake County plan."