The Triangle Transit Authority's plan for a regional rail system has hit another bump in the road.
The regional rail project has been slowed by everything from questions about funding-the TTA would need to raise an estimated $150 million-to difficult negotiations with two freight railroads. The project's most recent stumbling block occurred when CSX Corp., which has a long-term lease on a seven-mile stretch of track in Raleigh, realized it could not safely share the corridor with a commuter train.
"There is no doubt that we have hit a major stumbling block," said Sandy Ogburn, assistant to the general manager at the TTA. "But we're going to push through these negotiations."
Shortly after its inception a decade ago, the TTA began drafting plans for a transportation system that would connect Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The project is currently stalled while the North Carolina Department of Transportation struggles to negotiate with existing railroad companies and tries to decide on the most appropriate station sites in Raleigh.
Completion of the TTA's environmental study, which will measure environmental impacts of the plan, has been delayed due to this indecision and trouble finding a location for a University station. The study will not be released until fall 2000 at the earliest, said Amanda Arnold, a TTA transportation planner, adding that the project cannot proceed without it.
The TTA recently held public information sessions to present possible station sites to the Raleigh community. "People asked questions, and we weighed the pros and cons of the different station locations for them," said Arnold. "It gave the public an opportunity to see what it is we are considering."
The TTA has promoted the project not as a cure for the rapidly worsening traffic situation in the economically expansive Triangle area, but as a means of preventing increased congestion before it gets worse.
"Putting in a rail or fixed guideway won't relieve congestion to the point where the area is uncongested," said John Tallmadge, a planner with the TTA. "What it does is add more transport capacity in congested corridors and facilitate travel so that more people can get to their destinations within the Triangle area."
The University has played its own part in delaying the plan's progress-it rejected an earlier TTA proposal to erect a station in the vicinity of the Duke Medical Center at the corner of Erwin Road and Fulton Street. Administrators dismissed the proposal on grounds that the area was too congested.
Officials also cited concerns that the TTA did not have satisfactory plans for continuing the route on from Durham to Chapel Hill.
"They had no real plan to take the system to Chapel Hill from [the Fulton Street station] without going along Duke property-along the golf course and on out," said University Architect John Pearce.
Despite the lack of a concrete agreement with the TTA, Pearce said the University's master plan assumes that a station will be located somewhere near campus.
"We accept without question that such a transit system would be beneficial to the University," said Pearce. "It would exert many positive influences [on the campus] by making access easier."
It has been a number of months since the University and TTA have met to discuss the project because more pressing concerns have come to the forefront.
"The biggest dilemma facing TTA may be the ability to successfully compete for federal funds to support the project," said David King, TTA's general manager.
However, even the system's mode of transportation is still undetermined. "Four technologies are being looked at," said Tallmadge. "We are still trying to decide which technologies are the most appropriate to include." TTA officials are deciding among continuing the current rail vehicle, an electrified or diesel-fueled light rail vehicle, a busway and a hybrid busway system that would allow for bus travel along existing streets with corridors designed expressly for bus travel.
Tom Kendig, a project manager at the DOT, said choosing the most appropriate technology is another difficult aspect of the project. "We have to determine what is the best type of service, and which technology is most appropriate," he said. "There is a special effort in and around Duke to find the technology that has the least impacts."
Despite these snags, TTA officials remain confident that their work will eventually help shape the Triangle's future.
"Any complicated infrastructure project goes through a series of stages," said Juanita Shearer-Swink, senior transportation planner at the TTA. "We will resolve the details. Some take longer than others, but we will move forward with this project. It is a critical part of this region's future."
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