RTA Member Briefing: February 7
- February 7, 2025
- Posted by: Joe Milazzo II
- Category: Member briefing
RTA members and partners,
RTA caucus gatherings began today; RSVP for the next one
We had around 40 members, partners, and guests at our first RTA area caucus meeting of 2025 today. The gathering was held in concert by RTA Leadership Team member the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, and hosted by fellow Regional Leadership Team member Duke University. It was a great conversation and partnership — you can download some of the slides here.
We had a wonderful roster of speakers with us today, including: Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams; Duke President Vincent Price; RTA chair Sarah Gaskill with FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies; RTA transit chair Stelfanie Williams with Duke University; Becca Gallas with NCDOT/Division 5; Sean Egan with the City of Durham; Ellen Beckmann with Durham County; Katy Fontaine with Chapel Hill Transit; Doug Plachcinski with Triangle West TPO; and Bryan Lopez with NCDOT.
Registration is now open for our next RTA area caucus, to be held in Wake Forest on Tuesday, March 11. Click here for info and a registration link, and I look forward to seeing you and/or a colleague there.
A Capital focus, and a capital opportunity
RTA’s top freeway priority, and our organization’s highest priority rapid implementation initiative, is to accelerate the US 1 / Capital Boulevard freeway. As we have mentioned previously, the project will remove all stoplights, which will save travelers an enormous amount of time and stress; however, the project is taking an increasingly long time to get to construction. The newest draft state TIP was just released late last month, and due to cost increases and available funds, it shows an additional 5 year delay in the construction start year, from 2026 to 2031. The ongoing delays to Capital, the importance of an upgraded roadway to commerce and quality of life in northern Wake and Franklin counties, and the opportunity for our region to dramatically accelerate the improved roadway, are the primary reasons that RTA has endorsed advancing the upgrade of US 1 north to a multimodal freeway via toll revenue, potentially with a reduced rate during off-peak periods. See this week’s RTA blog post for more info; we should know more within a month on the viability and most promising path forward for upgrading Capital Boulevard to a multimodal freeway.
Joe
Let’s get moving,
Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA executive director
