News

Here is a brief weekly update from the RTA business coalition — the voice of the regional business community on transportation.

RTA RDU AID: next steps; your feedback
As we mentioned in yesterday’s Thursday Thoughts at 3 blog, identifying sustainable funding for essential growth at RDU Airport is now transportation priority one for the regional business community. The media coverage of our task force efforts has been outstanding in terms of elevating the issue, and we expect there to be more conversation over time. To that point, please continue to provide suggestions and comments on the task force preliminary findings and recommendations — several already have, and that is great. Sustainable funding for RDU is a “three comma problem” — that is, a multi-billion dollar one — and our organization and our partners may have to focus on this one for a while for success. We will get there.

Funding the future of mobility
The Triangle Business Journal released an article this morning on funding roadways in North Carolina. It does a great job covering the base, including highlighting the NC FIRST commission that is diving into this issue. We support the efforts of NC FIRST, and we have a specific recommendation involving an increase in vehicle registration fees and the reduction or elimination of motor fuel taxes, which we call a network access-based approach. The advantages of this method are clear: existing fee, independent of fuel source or volatility in usage, every entity that owns a vehicle will pay, etc. There are limitations as well, and we cover many of those in a 2015 RTA report.

2020: a year of multimodal freeways
Later this year, the Triangle region will receive its newest Interstate, I-885, as the Durham East End Connector, which we call the Triangle Connector to I-85, to traffic this summer. Other freeways including I-40, I-440, and Toll 540 will remain under construction for at least a few years, but all will be vitally important to providing more system resiliency. While accelerating 540 to I-40 is no longer our organization’s highest priority — because it is under construction — we will remain focused on the development of a multimodal freeway network, including the planned launch of our RTA FAST network study with GoTriangle and NCDOT next month.

Thank you for your leadership as an RTA member to get our region moving faster!

Let’s get moving,

Joe