News

Friday, January 17th, 2020 is the 18th annual meeting of the Regional Transportation Alliance — the voice of the regional business community on transportation.

Since late 2016, RTA has had our as highest priority the acceleration of 540 to I-40. As each of our fellow RTA members will celebrate tomorrow, that goal has been achieved, the project is accelerated and under construction.

And that means it is time for a new top priority for the regional business community concerning mobility issues in our market.

Starting this Friday, January 17th, RTA priority one is identifying sustainable funding for essential growth RDU Airport.

RTA members and partners know that we launched a task force last summer to focus on this issue. Entitled RTA RDU “AID” — Airport Infrastructure Development — our 12 task force members have been very busy, meeting five times, receiving information, engaging with key partners, digesting new information as it arrived, and grappling with what is a multibillion-dollar funding gap over the next two decades.

The RTA task force will be releasing a report that outlines their preliminary findings and recommendations tomorrow afternoon.

Here is a preview:

The task force was purposeful in seeking to advance a resolution of the funding issue by proposing a series of options while avoiding an excessive burden on any one group of stakeholders. When seeking to resolve a multibillion-dollar infrastructure funding gap, there is inevitably going to be something for everyone to like or dislike.

Come to the annual meeting tomorrow to learn more. We will post the report on our letsgetmoving.org/RDUAID webpage tomorrow as well.

Let’s work together as a region to make sure that our sky doesn’t fall as we grow.

Let’s get moving,

Joe Milazzo II, PE
Executive Director
Regional Transportation Alliance