Minutes 04-03-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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PUBLIC COMMENT: David Laudicina read a prepared statement: "To begin I would like to commend you on the work you have done on analyzing the transit plan especially with the addition of the Hillsborough train station to the plan. You have listened to your constituents and are willing to revise the plan. My concerns are that the 40% of the Orange County population living outside of Chapel Hill and Carrboro are not represented fairly by the dollars rural residents will spend with the proposed '/�-cent sales and use tax compared to the services rural residents will receive. Twenty-three percent of the Orange County population lives in Cheeks, Hillsborough, and Eno Township, easily drivable to a Hillsborough train station. The rest of the rural 40% also live a drivable distance to the proposed Hillsborough train station. The portion of the transit project supporting Orange County is estimated approximately at $315 million of a total cost of 1.378 billion dollars of which 25% of approximately $80 million will come from the proposed Orange County '/�-cent sales tax. If you look at the pie chart you can see that 97+ percent of the $316 million Orange County cost most of which is dedicated to the Light Rail service between Chapel Hill and Carrboro will benefit only Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents and a meager portion of 3% will benefit rural Orange County residents. Again, thank you for adding the Hillsborough train station to the plan. Introducing Amtrak service to Hillsborough is a wonderful addition but realistically will not support daily commuting between Hillsborough, Durham, Cary, Research Triangle and Raleigh. Current Amtrak service only runs less than 10 trains daily which are not conveniently scheduled to provide daily commuting service to rural Orange County residents to the Triangle and are costly. A round trip ride from Burlington to Raleigh is 18 to 22 dollars. I am proposing that the Board take a good hard look at extending limited commuter rail service from Hillsborough in the morning and to Hillsborough in the evening to the planned Commuter rail service on the current single track from Hillsborough to West Durham and adding the extended service to the plan. The current Commuter Rail Service is planned to provide service between West Durham, Durham, Cary, Raleigh, and Garner. Currently Amtrak and freight carriers run trains safely on the single track through Orange County on the SAME track proposed to support the commuter rail service between West Durham and Garner. Triangle Transit will say that it is too costly to build a second track but I believe in the short- term limited service to and from Hillsborough and West Durham and on to Cary and Raleigh could be accomplished quite cheaply and safely sharing the existing single track with Amtrak and freight carriers. The service would simply be a limited extension to the current proposed Triangle Transit Commuter rail service from West Durham to Raleigh and Garner. I wholeheartedly support public transportation but I don't think a properly educated rural Orange County resident will vote in favor of the current plan given the huge disparity in benefits and cost between rural Orange County and favoring Chapel Hill/Carrboro. Rural residents defeated the present '/�-cent sales tax in the first go round, which included rural benefits in economic development and schools and could easily defeat this referendum. In order to get buy-in from rural voters I think it would be prudent to add more services provided to rural Orange County residents. Take a look at the plan on the web for the Hillsborough train station area. The station is the heart of a sustainable residential and commercial community, walkable and bikable to downtown Hillsborough, built around a huge potential to provide commuter services to rural Orange County residents to the rest of the Triangle. This is just the kind of development Orange County and Chapel Hill have been talking about for years." Mary Carter lives in Hillsborough and she said that transit is important to Orange County. If it is done well, it will help focus density, encourage economic development, and