Agenda - 12-08-2011 - Attachment 2

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Executive Summary The 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan adopted by the Durham-Chapel Hilt-Carrboro and Capital Area Metropolitan Planning .Organizations in April 2009 iden#ified corridors for major investments in fixed guideway transit over the next 30 years. Through a Transitional Analysis,. the first step in the Alternatives Analysis (AA) process which was begun in Mareh 2410, three priority corridors were setected for further consideration: the Durham-Orange Corridor; the Durham-Wake Corridor and the Wake Corridor. In order to identify the most appropriate initial investment or Locally Preferred Alternative {LPA) for each corridor, a broad range of transit techno{ogy and alignment alternatives were examined. through the Conceptual Evaluation of Alternatives. " This Detailed Definition of Alternatives Technical Report presents the results of the Conceptual Evaluation of Alternatives and a recommendation for the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) which includes the preferred alignment, transit technology and station locations for the Durham-Orange Corridor. ~~. "t~ e In addition to the No-Build and Transportation System Management (TSM) Alternatives automatically advanced from the .conceptual alternatives screening, the transit technologies and alignment options remaining after the conceptual alternatives were combined into three fixed-guideway alternatives for detailed evaluation: Light Rail Transit (LRTi Alternative This alternative would operate light rail vehicles between University of North Carolina {UNC) Hospitals and east Durham and tncludes alignment options in .UNC Chapel Hill (A1 -UNC Hibbard Drive and A3 -UNC Southern), Meadowmont/Woodmont {C1 - Meadowmont Lane and C2 -George King Raadj, and South Square {D1-Westgate Drive and D3 - Shannon Road). A total of 17 station locations are .proposed. Bus Rapid Transit (BRTi-Nigh Alternative This alternative would operate BRT between UNC Hospitals. and east Durham, generally following the same alignment as LRT and including the same station locations. The only deviation would occur through downtown Durham. to the end-of-line at Alston Avenue in east Durham where fihe BRT-High option would utilize Pettigrew Street, while the LRT would run in the rail corridor. During the Special Transit Advisory Commission's (STAG) deliberations representatives of CSX Transportation (CSX) and Norfolk Southern Corporation {NS) stated that they would not accept the operation of busway/high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes in any railroad eorridor in which they operated. North Carolina Railroad {NCRR) advised fihe STAG that they too would not support busway/HOV lanes in the NCRR corridor. Existing Pettigrew Street is technically within the 200-foot railroad right-of-way but is currently utilized by vehicular and bus traffic. The BRT-High would operate similar to conventional bus in mixed traffic along Pettigrew Street,. but would transition to exclusive running along a new Pettigrew Street. connection to be :constructed as part of this project between Campus Drive and Duke Street.. Should BRT be selected as the Locally Preferred Alternative, the new guideway connection between these intersections would require coordination with the operating railroads and, potentially, further engineering and design analysis. BRT-Low Alternative A second BRT alternative was developed in consideration of the greater flexibility offered by BRT operations. The BRT-Low Alternative alignment mare closely follows existing roadways with less. aerial structures and more mixed-traffic segments. The BRT-Low alignment is similar to the BRT-High alignment but would deviate from the BRT-High alignment in the following three segments: Hamilton Road Station to Leigh Village Station (BRT-low Alternative 1), Gateway