Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted our community in 2019. These were stories that affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our local area.

On March 27, GoTriangle CEO and president Jeff Mann asked the transit authority’s Board of Trustees to recommend to the transit partners to discontinue work on the Durham – Orange Light Rail transit project.

The decision came a month after Duke University dealt a fatal blow to the project by not allowing it to move forward on some Duke property and near Duke hospital on Erwin Road.

Read our story on the final days of the light rail project:

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.

Continue reading here.

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