Rally at Pettigrew: Tipping Point for Light Rail?

Midst the unseasonably warm temperatures Thursday, about 150 people gathered at the Durham train station at West Pettigrew Street to extol the virtues of the light rail plan.  Many speakers, some Duke employees,  focused on Duke as the impediment to the project moving forward.

Let’s look at the reasons the Durham Orange Light Rail project is in trouble.  A big impediment is the number of unresolved engineering challenges. One engineering challenge resides at Duke University because so much of the route slices through wooded areas of Duke University crossing the campus near busy student activity centers and at the Duke Hospital Emergency Entrance.  Do Duke students and patients even know what’s on the drawing boards – years of construction on their campus?

These engineering challenges are not new.  GoTriangle has had years to resolve problems along the route and in these challenging areas.  Two high level Board members resigned last year from the private fundraising committee over unresolved problems caused by the project in Downtown Durham. The railroad tracks made an at-grade crossings that would have closed Blackwell Street near DPAC.  The solution?  A GoTriangle meeting of 50 people in December quickly produced a plan to build a tunnel underneath downtown Durham.  Costs are not final.  Read the  Herald article.

The rally speakers did not talk about the downtown tunnel nor the escalating costs of the rail project, or the leadership Duke has shown in race relations. In a January 10 meeting that was closed to the public, elected officials learned that up to an additional 500 million must be raised and financed,  pushing up the most recent price tag toward  3.9 billion dollars. (see numbers below). It was only through a public information request to GoTriangle, that we found out about the new projected costs.  Some elected officials have been slow to acknowledge the right of the public to follow the deliberative process as the solutions unfold.  See video tape of Mark Marcoplos discussing this question at the2/5/19 County Commissioner meeting.

In a few weeks, GoTriangle will reveal how they will pay for the new debt in  the financial plan.  It is likely that local governments will be asked to guarantee the new debt, potentially encumbering schools and social service budgets. That does raise questions about fairness to our county residents.

At the same time Duke took criticism  from the audience yesterday, Duke University’s investment to the city of Durham spurring the remarkable resurgence of making the city an interesting and happening city must be acknowledged.   See 2011 article.   GoTriangle needs to look at its own incompetence,  if the plans are not ready to submit to the Federal Transit Administration in time,