Students Must Show Interest In Transit Woes

Their efforts took a huge leap forward last week when the North Carolina Railroad Company agreed to grant TTA a 27-mile stretch of rail corridor to build and maintain a regional rail system expected to transport 44,000 daily riders by 2025.

TTA has been working on the rail since 1992, when an advisory group began considering which routes the rail might take and which technologies were desirable.

The board considered the potential revenues and costs of the rail alternatives and undertook a detailed environmental impact study evaluating several rail options.

Ultimately, the board decided to hire consultants to design a hybrid train that will use freight rail tracks but be quieter and more neighborhood- friendly.

"We want a train appropriate for our corridor," said Rachel Willis, Chapel Hill representative on the TTA board of trustees. "We want it to be crashworthy, but that doesn't mean big and it doesn't mean heavy."

TTA estimates the first phase connecting Durham, Raleigh, Morrisville, Cary and Research Triangle Park will be completed by 2007.

The second phase of the plan will extend transit from Durham to Chapel Hill using the U.S. 15-501 corridor.

The details here are still up for grabs. The planners want the public's input into the technology, the endpoints and the alignment of the transit with the highway.

TTA is holding a meeting from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Chapel Hill Library to discuss the possibilities.

One endpoint option would bring the transit within a quarter of a mile of UNC Hospitals. The University's Master Plan leaves open a fixed guideway corridor that will be reserved for some sort of mass transit, perhaps a rail, perhaps buses or shuttles.

While it would be awfully convenient for car-less UNC students to hop on the mass transit coming practically to their doorsteps, this setup would be even more important for University employees, hospital employees and patients.

"The fixed guideway corridor comes into one of the most dense groups of workers, students and patients in the state," Willis said. "It's important to have the transit corridor end at the hospital, where we can have the most impact."

But this isn't set in stone. Others in Chapel Hill might want the rail to go to Meadowmont or to Southern Village, two mixed-use residential and business developments.

Those endpoints would be great for the people who live and work there, but they ultimately would benefit fewer people than if the transport ended at the hospital.

Growth is a touchy subject for Chapel Hill and the University. The Master Plan already has caused concern for local residents and officials; adding a transit system that ends on the medical campus emphasizes UNC's growth even more. Chapel Hill residents might not approve.

So who on UNC's campus should care? Anyone concerned about the environment, UNC workers or the traffic jam every day that makes getting to Wal-Mart unbearable.

Anyone who hails from a different part of the country and grew up using mass transit should attend. Critics doubt young professionals would be willing to give up their cars to take a train to work in RTP. If you've had a different experience, share it Thursday.

Finally, this is the perfect opportunity to show the townspeople that UNC students care about more than our late-night plans.

Even though the freshmen will graduate before the new transit actually arrives in Chapel Hill, we can still show that we care about the long-term growth and potential of the region, the town and the University.

Columnist Anne Fawcett can be reached at fawcetta@hotmail.com.