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The Daily Tar Heel

BREAKING: GoTriangle Board of Trustees votes to discontinue the light rail project

Light rail mockup
GoTriangle has designed mock-ups for a light rail between Durham and Chapel Hill paralleling 15-501. Graphic courtesy of GoTriangle.

The GoTriangle Board of Trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend that the Durham Orange Light Rail Transit project be discontinued.

GoTriangle President and CEO Jeff Mann made the announcement after the Board's Wednesday meeting.

"Unfortunately, this project has recently faced a number of significant challenges, most notably Duke University’s refusal to sign necessary agreements with GoTriangle," he said at the meeting.

This comes after a tumultuous few weeks for the project. Facing rising costs and disagreements among partners, Duke University announced it would no longer provide land necessary for the current route.

This made meeting the April 30 deadline to secure nonfederal funds "increasingly difficult," Mann said.

"It pains me to make this recommendation," he said.

He said GoTriangle will continue to work with its partners to repurpose what has already been invested.

city@dailytarheel.com

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Anna Pogarcic

Anna Pogarcic is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel. She is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill studying journalism and history major.