Folks, it's almost here. Orange County Commissioners will hold mandatory public hearings on three items at 7 pm Tues 12/11 Southern Human Services Center Homestead Rd:
- 1/2% Durham/Orange sales tax,
- $7 annual Orange County vehicle registration fee, and
- $3 Durham/Orange vehicle registration fee.
Commissioners have all three items on the agenda right after the hearing. The Durham Commissioners had their hearing and final vote on the sales tax two weeks ago. If approved by Orange, then the TTA Board will vote on the sales tax Friday at 1 pm, and that will be final vote. Collections would begin 4/1/13.
TTA had a final public hearing on the sales tax and $3 fee last week. If the $7 fee is approved it starts 7/1/13, only Orange Commissioner vote, that money goes to Chapel Hill Transit and Orange Public Transit both for intra-county service. The $3 Durham/Orange fee will also need approval by Durham and TTA in January, and starts August 1 for regional service to be budgeted by TTA. Durham is scheduled to vote on its $7 fee in January to be effective August 1.
Issues:
Comments
Is there a timeline for increased transit service to the airport? I'd love to be able to take TTA to and from RDU for early and late flights, and on Sunday.
The airport is called RDU because it's Raleigh-Durham. A lot of its land is in Durham County, enough room for another runway. The AIrport Authority has Durham County members as a result of this. One of them was State Rep Paul Luebke, who was the first to ask for a transit connection to our regional airport. The former director opposed it for years -- to keep up the stream of parking fees -- but came around in recent years. Airports can be hard to serve with transit. Growing up in NYC, for long periods of time the only motor vehicle I was in was the cab to either JFK or La Guardia, neither accessible from my part of Queens by bus, subway or train. Ed Harrison
Thanks, Ed, for this detail. While I'm not surprised that RDU fought transit accessibility in the past, and likely supports the poor service today, the issue here isn't that airports are hard to serve with transit, it's that there are vested interests--the owners of parking lots, cab drivers--oppose transit because they benefit by having a monopoly. I've flown in and out of JFK and LGA many times, and have always used public transit to get there (JFK's AirTran is new; I don't know when bus service to LGA started).If there was increased transit service to RDU, it would be easier for Triangle to attract vacation travel, conferences, and other event-related travel because people could get from the airport to/from Raleigh, Durham, or Chapel Hill without renting a car. While a few vested interests would suffer, the economy as a whole would likely benefit, as cartels and monopolies are rarely good for anyone except those who directly benefit.
With a potential 110,000 new innovation jobs called for in the RTP master plan and adding the 100's of thousands of non innovative jobs created by multiplier effects (1 innovative job creates 5 non innovative jobs), I would think it would be prudent for TTA to plan for completing the light rail segement from Alston ave to Cary on the same existing right of way the commuter rail will use at the point where the RTP master plan starts bringing on the new jobs it calls for. This would create a continuous light rail system between Chapel Hill, Durham, RTP urban centers, Cary, Raleigh and N Raleigh. Also it would be relatively inexpensive to extend the commuter rail from W Durham to Hillsborough, Burlington, Greensboro and High Point. Durham, Burlington, Greensboro and High Point all have new stations and Hillsborough will have one soon. This could be done on the same existing right of way TTA plans to build the W Durham to Garner first commuter rail piece (ie the right of way from W Durham to High Point is there TTA would not have to purchase land etc.only add another track and equipment). And with proper light rail scheduling you could include Chapel Hill and N Raleigh with transfers in Durham and Raleigh in a daily commute.
Thx Dave L
Just to provide some additional context to what Gerry reported, while the map in the draft plan is useful, it is quite possible that the design will change somewhat in terms of the final service concept. There also may be a need to phase implementation of the route while we order some additional vehicles; a possible outcome would be to get the service started between Durham and Hillsborough first and then extend to Mebane as additional vehicles were delivered from the bus manufacturer. Depending on circumstances at the manufacturer it can take 12 to 18 months to order and build a new bus once revenue is available. Bottom line: we're still working on possible implementation scenarios and there will be an opportunity for residents in all parts of the county to weigh in on what this service might look like in the spring.We'll be sure to post information on those input opportunities here.
Was pleased to be able to recognize three friends and OP contributors in the audience for the TTA vote: TTA planning intern (and holder of a law degree) Geoff Green; Jason Baker, who put an astounding amount of effort and time into getting the Orange referendum passed; and Gerry Cohen, one-person early voting campaign machine. As long as Gerry was there, he was asked historical questions about sales tax legislation, and gave very enlightening answers. Ed Harrison
Hopefully, the hearing won't be too contentious. After all, the public has already had the opportunity to weigh in on this issue at the ballot box, and supported it by a reasonably wide margin.