Orange County NC Website
- Orange plan must be approved by Orange BOCC, DCHC-MPO TAC, and Triangle <br />Transit Board of Trustees (Durham has completed these steps) <br />- Part of a process required by STATE law <br />The financial plan needs to be approved by the Board of Commissioners and the two <br />MPOs. Even though the LPA was approved it does not mean that the County needs to approve <br />the financial plan or put this on the ballot. If the Board does proceed with a referendum, it <br />needs to keep up to date with the changing conditions in the financial plan that will last until <br />2035. Revenues should go up and costs will also go up. There are a lot of moving parts. <br />Chair Pelissier said that her understanding is that if they do not put the sales tax on the <br />ballot that this will be a negative for the New Start Application and Craig Benedict said yes. <br />Commissioner Gordon said that she did check with the MPO today and the BRT on 15- <br />501 is in the long-range transportation plan for 2035. This area is in Chapel Hill and the County <br />will need to work closely with Chapel Hill. <br />Commissioner McKee said that because there has been mention that BRT can be <br />pursued on the 15-501 corridors, are there figures of what the total cost would be if all the <br />options were implemented outside of the light rail component. <br />Craig Benedict said that there are no figures for BRT in the 15-501 corridor. In the <br />Martin Luther King corridor, there was $19 million put aside. <br />Chair Pelissier suggested moving on, unless there were some implications to what has <br />already been approved. <br />2. Shared Benefits <br />a. Shared Benefits Memo of 5/10/11 from John Hodges-Copple, Triangle J <br />Council of Governments (Attachment 2) <br />John Hodges-Copple made reference to his handout, and indicated that one part was <br />one page and the other one was 10 pages. He said that the technical experts were trying to <br />provide information so that local officials could decide where and what to fund. He said that <br />local governments are trying to put money in one of three bins. In Orange County, one of those <br />bins was the light rail investment. Another bin was MLK Parkway BRT of $19 million. The other <br />bin was bus - everything from local routes, to regional routes, to human service agency <br />transportation. The trick is to line these things up in Orange County and Durham County. He <br />said that Orange County needs to sit down with Durham County and figure out how to allocate <br />local revenues to the shared investment. He made reference to page 13 of the abstract and the <br />"Other Benefits", which are shown below: <br />Environmental Benefits <br />- Reduced traffic congestion <br />- Reduced fuel consumption <br />- Better air quality <br />- Reduced sprawl and more efficient pattern of development at the regional scale <br />- Conservation of open space <br />- Shorter trip lengths due to more compact development <br />