[Durham INC] Our transit future -- Third round public workshops -- Wednesday

[Ed Harrison]

The workshop this afternoon is at the Friday Center, just outside the  
Durham County line on the south side of NC 54 (on the left coming from  
Durham). While the workshops are about every potential station and  
every potential alignment, the planned station somewhere on the Friday  
Center site would be within a few minutes by light rail from 3 to 4  
Durham County stations -- the number depends on whether or not a  
station is shifted eastward. Two Orange County stations would be to  
the west of Friday Center, most notably the terminus on the UNC-CH  
campus.

The workshop next week is at the RTP Foundation headquarters, just  
off  Exit 280 (Davis Drive) on I-40, on Thursday.

All workshops start at 4 and go on as late as 7, with presentations at  
4, 5 and 6 PM.

Ed Harrison

Triangle Transit Board Member


On Mar 24, 2011, at 7:27 AM, Pat Carstensen wrote:

> I went to the open house last night.  If you want to see the big  
> maps, you have another chance today at the Chapel Hill Library or  
> out at RTP next week.  They are trying to get the maps, etc. into a  
> size that is reasonable to download from the website.
>
> A couple observations:
> What is new is breaking regional transit into 3 pieces: a commuter  
> segment between Durham Central Station and Raleigh (which would go  
> faster, have fewer stations, concentrate service in "commute-time"  
> period, and might be faster to put in) and local segments in Wake  
> County and in Durham/Orange Counties (which would have about twice  
> as many stations as the 1990's plan did).
> The Alston Avenue station will be the eastern-most station in the  
> Durham/Orange local.  It will have a significant amount of bus  
> service (from Durham Tech, NCCU, and neighborhoods).  I am really  
> concerned about how this interacts with the proposed Alston Ave.  
> widening, since you want to have lots of opportunity for dense,  
> walkable development within about 1/2 mile of the station, and it  
> looks to me like 1/2 the space you could do development in will be  
> street.  This station may take 20 years to realize, but then the  
> traffic justifying the widening may also take 20 years.
> There isn't much in the plan for South Durham -- you would have to  
> drive or take a bus to RTP to get on the train to Wake County, or  
> get to the I40-NC54 area to catch transit into Durham.  Which means  
> there won't be much incentive to develop smarter there.
> The stations (at South Square, Duke, and along the railroad through  
> Durham) would all be opportunities for new centers of activity.
> I worry that we may have missed our opportunity to do regional  
> transit.  When the schools have "What If" committees (I assume they  
> are doing worst case planning for how bad their budgets could be),  
> it's not clear we will have the will to invest in transit -- and I  
> don't think we can be a successful region (given growth and rising  
> cost of gas) without region.
>
> Regards, pat
>
> From: pats1717 at hotmail.com
> To: inc-list at durhaminc.org
> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:26:00 -0400
> Subject: [Durham INC] Our transit future -- Third round public  
> workshops --	Wednesday
>
> Open house, drop-in style:
>
> Wed, Mar 23, 4 - 7 PM | Durham Station Transportation Ctr, 515 W.  
> Pettigrew St., DURHAM.
>
> http://www.ourtransitfuture.com/
>
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