Dan Way reports for Carolina Journal on the discussion between transit experts and Wake County commissioners on Tuesday.
A trio of transportation experts told the Wake County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that more bus service, and less eagerness to move to light rail, appears to be the best next step for Wake County.
“Look at your demand … and come up with something you need that lines up with the demands of the community,” said Cal Marsella, former CEO of Denver’s Regional Transportation District now working for a private transportation management firm.
“You can build your markets … and test them” with buses, he said. “I would go low-cost to start with. You cannot build experimental light rail.”
Community leaders must be careful in exulting rail service, said Steve Polzin, transit research program director at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida.
“You can shoot yourself in the foot by creating second-tier status” for bus patrons, he said. “You’re telling all those persons they’re getting a second-class product.”
Some communities “are hurting the folks that need [bus] transit now to get folks out of BMW’s” and into light rail, Polzin said. “You need to be sensitive to who you’re trying to help … Hold harmless your existing markets.”
Marsella and Polzin also were joined on the panel by Samuel Staley, associate director of the DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University.
Population growth and density in Wake County likely are insufficient to secure vital federal grants needed to include light rail and commuter rail projects in a regional transit plan, a trio of transportation experts told the commissioners.
