The Durham-Orange Light Rail Project has been approved by the Federal Transit Administration to enter the engineering phase.
The project is in contention to receive over $1 billion dollars in federal investment.
Go Triangle project director Danny Rogers claims that this will bring continued involvement from the FTA.
“They take that very seriously,” said Rogers, “because now [the FTA] is going to start investing in our project through partnership and more involvement.”
This approval by the FTA also means that any work done on the project is still eligible for reimbursement.
The Orange County Board of Commissioners was briefed on this and several other updates to the project last week, including specific engineering plan changes to the Gateway, Patterson Place and University Drive Stations.
A public meeting will run from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. Thursday night at Extraordinary Ventures in Chapel Hill to provide general project updates, including information on current design considerations.
Go Triangle is now spending more than 30 M dollars of Orange County money doing the engineering work for a project that may well not happen (we are not as highly ranked as our competitors) . If the Federal Transportation Admin does not come through with the money in 2020, we lose our investment which could have gone to Bus Rapid Transit on our major corridors. Just imagine the fabulous transportation system we could have with half the 3..2 B price tag this costs and in the places we need it!