Orange County NC Website
<br />idea of what it could be and have it as realistic as possible.. Now somebody may say, 507 <br />“well if we project lower employment, and population we’ll never get any money to 508 <br />widen the roads” they might say something like that but, it’s a balance and a 509 <br />prioritization and you just have to… I think the biggest thing there was a presentation 510 <br />on the Orange County bus.. plan, and there was a 4 year “let’s look at it again” clause. 511 <br />What is the cost of the project, how are the revenues coming in, have there been any 512 <br />changes with state funding, or federal funding, are revenues higher than what were 513 <br />projected and the cost of the project changes…. Yes. The BRT bus was originally 514 <br />planned 4 years ago to go to the UNC hospital, now it’s projected to go down to 515 <br />Southern Village. The original cost of that was programmed at 24.5 million and the new 516 <br />estimate is anywhere from 70-90 million. But admittedly, that’s 7,000,000 a mile versus 517 <br />the light rail which is 88,000,000 a mile. Some new information that I heard last night is 518 <br />the regional transportation alliance, which is a business related triangle firm that is 519 <br />concerned about businesses and transportation, asked GO triangle if could .. a 520 <br />dedicated, further railways be used for bus rapid transit. It’s got a dual use. I saw a 521 <br />response today from GO triangle about why they don’t recommend that. But what 522 <br />we’re doing with the North/South corridor, if they do a bus rapid transit route it will be a 523 <br />separate lane from traffic but other buses can use it.. And emergency vehicles…If we 524 <br />run a bus from Hillsborough down to the hospital we can jump on that lane and have a 525 <br />dual use of it. So if you spend $7,000,000 a mile but you can put more people to use 526 <br />that corridor you have such great efficiencies versus other scenarios where you have 527 <br />light rail and they’re not suggesting to co- mingle it with a bus rapid transit bus. 528 <br />Highway 54, even with light rail, will be over capacity. And so they’re going to have to 529 <br />build another lane to put bus rapid transit to go out to either Southpoint, maybe out to 530 <br />the airport, maybe up to 751 in the Woodcraft neighborhood. So a lot of things out 531 <br />there. We’ll keep you informed on this and we’ll talk about those elements.. We’re 532 <br />going to have the opportunity if we get these numbers fast enough to test and see 533 <br />where it pushes new growth. 534 <br /> 535 <br />Paul Guthrie: The main thing you learn in transportation, and no community seems 536 <br />to get their arms around, is the fact that there’s a lot of front end cost. And the 537 <br />sooner you do the front end cost the better off you are in the long run. But, nobody’s 538 <br />going to take that 20 or 30 or 40 year perspective. They always want to look at it in 539 <br />the small… 540 <br /> 541 <br />Tony Blake: The point in Craig’s presentation is that we have built in constraints that 542 <br />prevent this from happening. Our politics and our eyes and our stomach don’t match 543 <br />here. We’re not capable of digesting these… 544 <br /> 545 <br />Paul Guthrie: If you ever need an example; the classic example is the railroad into New 546 <br />York City. Where there’s a bridge over part of the wetlands in New Jersey that’s going to 547 <br />cost about $3,000,000,000 to replace for the railroad traffic. And it’s the only way in and 548 <br />the only way to go to the Northeast with all the freight traffic, except a long detour up to 549 <br />central New York and across. And they have been fiddling on it for 40 years. The thing 550 <br />is going to fall down on them one of these days. They patch it every year, and they 551 <br />won’t bite the bullet. And that’s the classic. 552 <br /> 16