Predictably,  now that Durham County has passed a half-cent transit tax, Wake County  Manager David Cooke is beginning his push for a half-cent transit tax in Wake.

 

Wake’s transit plan calls for bus service to be nearly doubled in the first five years, and for commuter trains to start rolling within eight years. Triangle planners are counting on only modest economic growth over the first 25 years covered in the transit plan, Cooke said. If revenues are lower or costs are higher than expected, he said, it would delay the bus and train timetables by a year or two.

Cooke and King will spend the next three months selling the transit plan to Wake County’s 12 town and city councils. Cooke will ask each local board to approve the transit plan, and to endorse the proposed sales tax as a way to pay for it.

Then he’ll ask Wake commissioners in March or April to approve the plan and schedule a November 2012 referendum on the sales tax.