Last week, we ran a bunch of comments about our coverage of Duke University’s decision to abandon a cooperative agreement with GoTriangle over the Durham-Orange Light Rail line, likely killing the project. We haven’t emptied out that mailbag just yet.
John Austin takes issue with editor Jeffrey Billman’s assessment that Duke effectively vetoed a project that had popular support: “I was one of many who voted for the idea of a light-rail system back in 2012,” he writes. “So much has changed in the intervening six years that I no longer support this system. The projected cost at the time was $1.4 billion—we are now approaching three times that cost, and Durham’s share has increased. Proponents of light rail cite the development benefits of such a system. However, it is difficult for me to believe that this system, in this area, with this routing, at this cost will create those benefits. The daily ridership numbers are extremely optimistic when compared to other light-rail systems, and GoTriangle has not been forthcoming with how they arrived at those numbers.
“We are on the brink of significant technological advances. Uber is barely six years old and has completely changed how we view taxis. Autonomous vehicles are not far away and will cause significant disruption. Durham is a progressive and forward-thinking city. Why are we building a nineteenth-century fixed rail system and not looking towards twenty-first-century solutions?”
“This article is totally irresponsible,” says Guy Whilden. “You come across like an upset child. Help me understand something: Did the people vote on the approval of the light rail? No, they did not. Whether or not [most people knew the transit sales tax hike would fund light rail] is speculation. Sure, it was known by many, but I bet there were plenty of people who actually based their vote on what the words literally said. A small group of people wanted this, and some of them had/have enough pull to get the project much farther than it ever should have.
“My biggest issue is that you felt you needed to try to humiliate Duke instead of being a legitimate journalist. Considering how you came out of left field with a totally unrelated incident involving Tallman Trask III [allegedly using a racial slur at a] parking attendant shows me that you know it wasn’t Duke’s fault. [Editor’s note: Trask suggested running the rail line through a black neighborhood instead of along Erwin Road.] That was also the point at which you completely compromised your integrity as a journalist and the point where the article became propaganda instead of anything resembling a source of news. Whether people support or don’t support the light rail doesn’t matter. What matters is the manner in which you presented your opinions in this article, and that the INDY thought it was appropriate to publish them.”
“Your article was terrific. Great journalism,” writes retired Superior Court Judge Melzer A. Morgan Jr. “I have long been a fan of rail. I did notice an editorial in The Daily Tar Heel recently opposing light rail and suggesting that buses were more flexible. We took a bus from Denver to Boulder several years ago and noticed what a passenger bargain it was and how frequently the buses ran between those two points.”
Patrick Murphy suggests our coverage is responsible for killing the deal: “After all the nastiness toward Duke, it is completely tone-deaf to ask them to come back to the negotiating table. You fools. You haven’t put pressure on them, you simply offended them. Stop fanning the anti-Duke flames. You are just poisoning the well for the future.”
“Right,” counters Kuanyu Chen. “It is the rhetoric of an independent publisher that caused the schism in this deal, not the decades of delayed decisions and ‘further studies’ and renegotiation (and the eventual backout) that makes the city councils and transit officials not want to work with Duke’s Board of Trustees.”
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