Agenda - 05-02-2017 - 8-a - Minutes

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21 1 2 When I moved to Chapel Hill for grad school, my boyfriend (now husband) moved here with me. 3 He had recently gotten his undergrad degree and was looking for work. As often happens 4 when you don't have experience, he had trouble finding work in his field and ended up working 5 part-time jobs to help make ends meet. This was tough but manageable until our only car 6 broke down. With neither one of us employed full-time, we could not afford to buy a new car. So 7 he had to search for new part-time work in areas that was transit-accessible to Chapel Hill until 8 he found full-time employment and could afford a car. This was very limiting. One of the part- 9 time jobs he found was in downtown Durham, where the proposed light rail will eventually go. It 10 takes well over an hour to get there by bus and if my husband worked a late shift and missed 11 the last bus, it was an expensive cab ride home. Eventually, he was able to find a full-time job 12 but that was a stressful time in our lives. 13 14 Lack of access to transportation is a major barrier to getting out of poverty. The proposed light 15 rail and improvements in bus service in the transit plan will help connect people to jobs. 16 17 Rachel Willis said she supports light rail. 18 Ally Clonch said she is a grad student at UNC, and is in support of light rail. 19 Edmund Tiryakian said he comes to praise light rail, not to bury it, and said this 20 concept's wisdom may shine eventually, but its many shortcomings confront us now. He said 21 the LRT will not serve the entire County. He said he does not trust the word of GoTriangle, and 22 he is not in support of this light rail plan. 23 Gary Saunders said he won the Golden Ticket award for riding buses. He said he 24 brings 40 years of experience with environmental engineering, and has been a transit user 25 since 2005. He said he grew up in northern Virginia, and watched the building of metro system, 26 which faced as many critics as the LRT project. He asked if the financial plan is a reasonable 27 approach for the future, and he said yes it is. He encouraged the BOCC to vote in favor of 28 LRT. 29 Alex Cabanes reviewed the following comments: 30 In November 2016, Jeff Mann was asking Orange and Durham County Commissioners for 31 more funding to close the DOLRT gap before the end of 2016. In Orange County, specifically 32 for- $40 million over 10 years. Then in January 2017, GoTriangle came back with the 33 "Christmas Surprise" and said GoTriangle was able to fund the now $2.5 BILLION DOLRT 34 project Then we discovered that there was an additional $1 BILLION in interest payments that 35 GoTriangle had failed to disclose earlier.... and that 'omission' was only discovered by the 36 independent Davenport consultants retained by the Orange County Commissioners. 37 Thank you for doing some additional due diligence on the financials (but it does raise the 38 question as to what other 'omissions' or assumptions on ridership, etc we are not seeing). 39 40 That is $1 BILLION that would go to bankers to finance this project (not for actual public 41 transit). So here we sit, staring at a project cost of$3.3 BILLION (including interest payments 42 out to 2062) ... and GoTriangle has yet to break ground! 43 44 Let's put that in perspective: Orange County will pay approximately $325 million what was 45 expected from the state of North Carolina in 2011 ... and that assumes all goes according to 46 'plan' (which the last 5 years have demonstrated that the costs seem to only go in one direction, 47 UP). 48 49 Unfortunately the DO-LRT math just doesn't add up, despite what many last night may wish. 50 Never has, never will.