Guest Columnist
Growth continues to be a topic of increasingly serious concern in our region. Our current population is approximately 1.5 million, and planners project that we can expect an additional 1 million people over the next 25 to 30 years.
We in the Triangle enjoy a high quality of life, encouraging people to move here to build businesses, careers and families. But our firms, work force and residents rely on infrastructure, including our transportation network. To sustain this growth and retain our quality of life requires a transportation system that offers reliable, cost-effective and time-competitive service for commuters and freight as well as options for access to shopping, medical service and entertainment.
With that in mind, a group of 29 concerned citizens, as well as various planning staffs, was convened in 2007-2008 as a Special Transit Advisory Commission (STAC). This group, representing six counties within the two Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), developed a Regional Transit Plan that would provide the framework of a truly regional transit system for the Triangle.
The proposed plan will not only provide transit service to existing communities but will encourage the development of new growth around transit centers, providing distinct advantages for economic growth, social diversity and equality, and both environmental and quality of life improvements. The STAC also made recommendations on how this plan could be funded, including the provision of an optional half-cent sales tax to the counties involved.
This plan subsequently has been adopted by both the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO (DCHC-MPO) and the Capitol Area MPO (CAMPO) and the specific implementation steps for this plan are now being worked out by the two MPOs.
With the recent passage of new, enabling transit legislation, we are facing a historic opportunity for citizen input in planning for transit for the next 25 years. Under the new legislation the transit plan must include provisions for affordable housing, protections for the environment, requirements for bicycle and pedestrian access, transit-oriented development and other benefits.
The Durham-Orange Friends of Transit (DO Transit) is building a grassroots organization to promote transit in both Durham and Orange counties and in the Research Triangle region.
DO-Transit seeks to make the citizens of Durham and Orange counties partners in the plan so that they, as stakeholders, will take an active part in encouraging their colleagues, friends and families to also become stakeholders. As stakeholders we can use our collective support to help our elected officials and their planning staffs as they develop these plans for implementation, including the critical funding components.
We are holding an organizational meeting at Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 4907 Garrett Road in Durham from 6:45-10 p.m. today. Please join us in this most important effort.
George J. Cianciolo is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center.
