Agenda - 03-25-1986 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I. INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT The spectacular growth of the Research Triangle Park in recent years has brought with it a number of important benefits to the Triangle area. The Park has stirred economic development with many new jobs in research and development industries. As a result of this growth, the region has enjoyed an extremely low unemployment rate and a booming local construction industry. Along with the growth, however, there has also been increased stress on local services. One such service is transportation. The growth in population and employment in the Triangle area has created tremendous stress on the local system of roads and highways. Highway congestion, once almost unknown in the then rural Research Triangle Park area, is now a matter of increasing concern to commuters within the region. Ironically, many of these commuters have recently moved to the Triangle from urban areas in which traffic congestion was a serious deterent to the quality of life. Now these same commuters are finding traffic congestion to be a major problem in their new location. In fact, the quality of life advantages of central North Carolina, which attracted many of the businesses and people to the Triangle area, may potentially deteriorate to the point at which economic growth is hindered. Clearly, there are a number of possible measures which could alleviate the transportation problem within the Triangle region. Highway improvements, such as the completion of I-40, are one such measure. Alone, more highways will not solve the problem. As it has been demonstrated in countless cities across the country, more highways lead to more travel , and highway planners are forever put in the position of trying to catch up with the demand for highway travel . In addition, highway construction is exceedingly expensive. The recent Wilbur Smith study for the Reseach Triangle Foundation identified $11.9 million of road improvements needed just for the Research Triangle Park. Even with these improvements and with the completion of I-40, the transportation problem in the Triangle area will continue. There are other possible contributors to the solutions. One is to improve the provision of public transportation services within the Triangle area. Currently there are three urban bus systems serving the three principal cities in the Triangle, yet none of these systems serves the Research Triangle Park, and no two of these systems are linked together. Thus a commuter who wishes to travel either from one city to the other or from one city to the Triangle Park does not have bus service as a travel option. One possible way to relieve the transportation problems in the area would be to improve the level of service and the coverage provided by fixed- route buses. The regional ridesharing organization, TRI-A-RIDE, which is housed at the Triangle J Council of Governments, provides carpool and vanpool matching services and leases vans to private individuals who want to head up vanpools. A dramatic increase in these commuter pooling efforts could be a viable way to provide relief to traffic congestion.