Legislative Watch: Light Rail Planners Adjusting for Cut
Planners for the Orange-Durham passenger light rail project are working to adjust for legislators’ latest restrictions.
As reported last week, this year’s budget added further complications to the process of planning and funding this green transportation initiative. A “technical corrections” bill rescued the project from a killer provision which had been inserted in the main 2018 budget bill. However, the rescue provision added its own set of problems.
Under the latest restrictions, the maximum in state funding for the project was cut back by $57 million (from $247 million to $190 million). In addition, the project will be required to show that it has $1 billion committed from local and private sources by April 2019, and $1.24 billion in federal money by November 2019.
Local planners are working to craft options for the Orange and Durham county commissions to close the new funding gap. This light rail line is viewed as a central part of economic development and urban growth planning for the region. In addition to helping address traffic congestion issues, it will spur more compact and walkable mixed-use development around its stations, substituting for more sprawling growth that eats up green space and produces more air-polluting auto traffic.
Fixed rail projects are an especially important way to spur developments that make transportation alternatives work for more people. That’s why groups like the Koch network-funded Americans for Prosperity have made killing passenger rail development a major part of their nationwide anti-environmental attack plan. They know that keeping more Americans dependent on the private auto as their only transportation option serves the fossil fuel industry—but not the average American or the clean air and water we all need.
