Wednesday’s meeting of the GoTriangle Board of Trustees might end up being a pivotal moment for the future of the Durham – Orange Light Rail Project.

After an update from interim project director John Tallmadge, the trustees will go into closed session, according to the agenda posted online. What decisions they reach after that, if any decisions are reached at all, is not known at the moment.

Going by the meeting agenda, the trustees are scheduled to then talk about next steps for the light rail. Agenda items include approving design changes to the Pettigrew Street rail alignment and reimbursement to the City of Durham for the costs of a final design plan review.

What is clear, Orange County Commissioner Penny Rich said, is that regardless of what transpires at the meeting, transportation planning needs to be a priority moving forward, in Orange County and across county lines.

“We still want to have a regional transportation plan. That’s really important to us,” Rich said. “To not just work in isolation because we have been working together for so long that we have to continue that.”

Future transportation planning must include Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Wake County and other neighboring communities experiencing rapid population growth, Rich said. She added that meant including Chatham County as it is projected to see major growth.

“We also have to get Chatham involved, because more and more people are moving there, and we’ve got to get those folks up to UNC; that’s where they work. 15-501 is going to be a disaster if we don’t think ahead.”

Wednesday’s GoTriangle meeting is scheduled to start at noon. Rich said she hopes trustees will come out with updates on the future of the light rail project, so Orange County and surrounding communities can move forward with their own planning.

“If we don’t think about 20 years from now, people are going to look back and say, ‘what were they thinking.’”

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