Project Background

 

Background and Purpose.

There has been no comprehensive, consistent regionwide blueprint for major transit investments since the development of the 1995 Regional Transit Plan. More recent major transit investment planning has focused on individual projects or grouping selected projects into a transit component of the fiscally-constrained Long-Range Transportation Plans (LRTPs) that are created by the region's two Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs).

The MPOs will create new 2035 LRTPs during 2007 and 2008. The Transit Blueprint Technical Analysis Project was developed to provide consistent, documented analysis capabilities for considering major transit capital investments in these two plans and to help address concerns associated with major transit projects in the current 2030 LRTPs, including:

  • Project costs are outdated and derived from different sources
  • Major transit projects assume 50% federal funding and 25% state funding
  • The plans assume $3.5 billion in new revenues not currently available

The technical analysis project can play an important role in develop a compelling, publicly-supported long range blueprint for transit in the Triangle Region.

The two MPOs have appointed a Special Transit Advisory Committee to help the MPOs develop a Regional Transit Vision Plan, charging the committee to deliver to the MPOs a set of recommended major transit investments to serve the Triangle.