GoTriangle CEO and president Jeff Mann asked the transit authority’s Board of Trustees on Wednesday to recommend to the transit partners, including Durham and Orange counties, to discontinue work on the Durham – Orange Light Rail transit project.
The GoTriangle Board of Trustees met on Wednesday to discuss the future of the project, which has seen recent setbacks after Duke University said it would not sign a cooperative agreement to allow the light rail line to run along Erwin Road near the Duke Hospitals campus.
The transit board heard on Wednesday that there were other issues that were causing delays on the project and ultimately voted unanimously to recommend stopping work on the project. Orange County Commissioner Mark Marcoplos said after the meeting that the board was looking for last-minute solutions right up until Wednesday’s meeting.
“We were aware of the multitude of challenges that we had, and we just wanted to be thorough and investigate if there was any way to go forward,” Marcoplos said. “And that hinged a lot on the eminent domain question. We initially, a month or two ago, thought we had quick-take authority, and we found out that we didn’t. And it was going to take two years, probably, and end up in superior court. Meanwhile, we’d be trying to work with Duke, and that just became untenable.”
The North Carolina Railroad also did not sign a cooperative agreement with GoTriangle for the project. Mann told the board on Wednesday that the railroad was requesting $30 million for a lease agreement, which was significantly more than the $4 million that had been budgeted.
The Federal Transit Authority also told GoTriangle recently that the cost of the project had increased by $237 million due to recent design changes, inflation adjustments and contingency funds.
The project needed to meet a state-imposed November 30 deadline to have a full-funding grant in place with the FTA in order to potentially receive $190 million from the state for the project.
Mann said that it was not likely lawmakers would work with the transit board to push back the deadline.
“We considered efforts to push the deadline back,” Mann said after the meeting. “And had we only had one obstacle – such as Duke University and the cooperative agreement, or an agreement with the North Carolina Railroad or a government shutdown – I think it would have been more likely that we could’ve been successful. However, there were a number of obstacles, as you heard today. So when we looked at those obstacles, we made an assessment that it would be unlikely that we’d be successful in pushing that deadline back.”
Mann said that GoTriangle staff met with leadership at the FTA last week, and that federal officials said it was highly unlikely the necessary adjustment work could be done in order to have a full-funding grant in place by that state deadline in late November.
John Morris spoke at Wednesday’s meeting asking that the transit authority abandon the light rail line in favor of other options, including bus options that he said seem to be more of a focus in Wake County.
“We’ve been sitting here transfixed by this bright, shiny object of the light rail,” he said after the vote. “[Wake is] moving ahead with things that are more practical, and with things that can be put in place flexibly and incrementally, without having to wait 10 years to see the results.”
Marcoplos said Wednesday that transit options were still needed for the 15-501 corridor connecting Chapel Hill and Durham.
“Considering that the light rail was well-studied and was the best solution for our problem,” he said. “But we have other options and a commitment; we have a commitment to provide the best transit that we can. And it’s up to a lot of other people beside myself to figure out that plan, but we’re committed.”
There is no firm plan on what those options could look like across the region, Marcoplos said.
“Driverless, flying cars are not ready for prime time,” he said, “so, we’re going to have to stick to the basics. We’re going to have think about buses; we’re going to have to think about bike and pedestrian.”
More than $130 million had been spent on the project to this point. Some of those funds would have been reimbursed by the federal government, if the line received a full-funding grant.
While Wednesday’s vote effectively ended the project, votes will have to be carried out by commissioners in Orange and Durham counties as well as the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization to actually authorize stopping the work.
Need to stop collecting the ,5 percent tax since the money already spent was a total waste. Only 5 million spent toward any land acquisitions and 125 million paid for planning. Obviously someone was getting rich at the taxpayers’expense. Someone should be held responsible, but in this world we just accept this fraud.
There needs to be a full and externally conducted review of this mess. The GoTriangle management and local gov’t board members are blaming everyone else, but it is ultimately their failure to make this happen. An honest review of why this failed is badly is needed, including the role played by GoT management and local gov lack of oversight. It will be a terrible mistake to simply keep collecting the tax and have the SAME GoTriangle team and the SAME elected officials on their Board come up with another bad plan. The GoTriangle management and local Board reps need to take responsibility and step aside. It was ultimately their failure.