GoTriangle Might Not Get All of the State Money It Wants for Light Rail, But It Should Get Enough to Keep the Project on Track
Unless its budget changes, the maximum contribution the N.C. Department of Transportation can legally make to the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project is $183 million, which is less than the $247.6 million GoTriangle had requested, the INDY has learned. The good news for light rail proponents is that they’re likely to get all of that…
Here’s Some Good News for Proponents of the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit Project
This post is excerpted from the INDY’s morning newsletter, Primer. To read this morning’s edition in full, click here. To get all the day’s local and national headlines and insights delivered straight to your inbox, sign up here. Yesterday, the North Carolina Department of Transportation released an evaluation of seventy-seven Statewide Mobility projects that are…
Durham, don’t fear the 15-501 road diet
For the nine years that I have traveled Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, I’ve wondered how Foster’s customers could possibly relax in those Adirondack chairs, the ones on the lawn facing the busy road. It must be the same crowd who enjoys the infield at the racetrack. About 14,000 cars, many of them traveling 50 mph in…
Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard could shrink from five lanes to three
Summary of public comments and responses Whatever you do, don’t call it a “road diet.” That implies drivers are being deprived of something like total dominance over the road ways. Instead, let’s just say we’re sending a part of Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard to a spa for sculpting and contouring. Under a new plan, this summer…
N.C. Senate passes eventual gas tax hike
N.C. Senate Republicans’ gas tax cut—which is not really a tax cut—is heading to the state House. The chamber gave its approval today of Senate Bill 20, controversial legislation that would offer a short-term decrease in the state’s fuel tax before raising the levy in the coming years. Senate leadership described the bill, sponsored by…
N.C. DOT—finally—agrees to issue driver’s licenses to qualified undocumented immigrants
Certain undocumented immigrants will be eligible for driver’s licenses and ID cards, according to a press release issued today by the N.C. Department of Transportation. The department will also reinstate driving privileges to 13 immigrants whose licenses were suspending pending the N.C. Attorney General’s opinion and the N.C. DOT review. The decision affects immigrants who…
From wars to schools to transportation: New DOT Sec. Tony Tata, renaissance man!
(Updated to include McCrory press release, below, with bios of Tata and three other appointments, including two with extensive Duke Energy backgrounds — like McCrory himself.) Tony Tata, ex-Army general turned ex-Wake schools superintendent, will be DOT secretary in the McCrory Administration. Puts me in mind of the “Welcome Back, Kotter” theme song. Ironic, in…
More NC Department of Transportation Coverage
A hitch in Raleigh’s rail plans
The good news is Union Station, a future hub for commuter, Amtrak and high-speed rail service in Raleigh, is fully funded at $60 million. The bad news is the rail corridor coming into the Union Station complex will need widened to accommodate additional sets of train tracks and the platform to service the high-speed line.…
Raleigh’s Union Station: Future rail to “lop off” Citrix?
photo by Bob Geary A freight train chugs past the West Hargett Street intersection: When the rail corridor is widened, it will slice into the Citrix buildings On Friday, we reported the good news about Raleigh’s Union Station, Phase 1: It’s fully funded at $60 million. In the buildup to that announcement, I heard one…
The good news in Raleigh: Union Station, Phase 1, is fully funded at $60 million
I see that it was just 15 months ago — last June — when the state DOT made its first public pitch for turning the old Dillon Supply fabrication building, also known as the Viaduct Building, into a new Amtrak station for downtown Raleigh. file photo by Bob Geary The Viaduct Building inside — it…
Apply for your DREAM
What will the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office do now that many undocumented immigrants will live legally in the U.S.? (See story, Criminal minds: racial profiling in Alamance County) Starting today, DREAMERSUNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS who were brought to the U.S. as children, can apply for a two-year work permit and temporary relief from deportation. The policy change…
Pain in the Ass fails to make short list for I-40/440 construction name
Neither Pain in the Ass nor Royal Goat Fuck made the cut for naming for the interstate project that will ensnare traffic for 11 miles and three years on I-40/440. We know, you can’t win if you don’t enter. Nonetheless, the public offered some wonderful turns of phrase. The N.C. Department of Transportation launched a…
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