Light rail plans move forward after Town Council meeting

Local officials are advancing plans for a light rail system that would connect Durham and Chapel Hill — even though the tax that would fund it is months, and possibly years, away from passing.

At Monday night’s Chapel Hill Town Council meeting, the council voted to recommend that The Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization — which is made up of both county and town officials from Orange, Durham and Chatham counties ­— continue evaluating two proposed routes for the light rail.

The recommendation also said the council prefers a transit path through the proposed Hillmont development, one of two routes being considered.

The planning organization will meet Feb. 8 to determine whether one or both routes should be studied further.

Chapel Hill will be represented at the meeting by Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, who is a voting member on the board.

Planner Ellen Beckmann said the group will likely evaluate both options.

Neither route can be built until Wake and Orange Counties pass a sales tax referendum to fund the project. Durham passed its referendum in November.

The options

If constructed, the 17-mile corridor would extend from downtown Durham to Chapel Hill’s UNC Hospitals.

The first of the two routes being considered would run through Meadowmont and across a section of Little Creek Bottomlands. The second would follow N.C. 54 through Hillmont.

Both routes would include stops at Duke Medical Center and the Friday Center.

Residents at a Nov. 14 town public hearing raised concern over the Meadowmont route, which would cut through a wetland and separate Cedars of Chapel Hill Retirement Community residents from their health center.

Those concerns were a factor in the council’s recommendation of the Hillmont route.

David Bonk, Chapel Hill’s long range and transportation planning manager, said either plan will serve students.

“The routes were designed to provide access to the University,” he said.

He said the next step will be an environmental assessment of each route.

Once the proposals are complete and funding is approved, the corridor would be built as the final step of three phases.

The first phase includes bus improvements and a separate commuter rail line connecting Durham to Research Triangle Park and Raleigh, scheduled to be completed in 2018.

The corridor, set for 2025 completion, calls for trains to connect UNC, Duke and N.C. State University and smaller colleges.

Affecting students

Geoffrey Green, a graduate student in UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning, said a light rail system would provide an alternative to biking or taking the bus to campus, but would not serve all students living off campus.

“I think it would help folks in the Meadowmont apartments and any other transit-oriented developments built in its wake, but there are many complexes … not near the line,” he said.

The light rail would provide an alternate method of transit for Robertson Scholars, who commute between Duke and UNC by bus.

Robertson Scholar Alison Kibbe said she might use the light rail if stations were nearby and trains ran frequently.

“I think that generally I wish there was more easy public transportation around the Durham-Chapel Hill area, especially between them.”

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