Chapel Hill BRT Moves Further Forward
This month has been great for enhanced transit in the metropolitan Triangle.
Chapel Hill Transit has been spearheading the 8+ mile long North-South BRT project for several years. This week the president signed the FY 2026 Appropriations Act, which included $117m in federal funding for the NSBRT project. This fully funds the expected Small Starts grant funding share from the Federal Transit Administration.
Our current understanding is that the FTA will make an allocation for the project by this spring.
This essential transit project, which has been planned for more than a decade, will serve as a vital multimodal link for Chapel Hill and beyond, including connecting UNC Chapel Hill’s main campus with the future Carolina North campus, as well as the the hospitals in the UNC Medical Center complex and Downtown Chapel Hill.
The project will have more than 5.5 miles of dedicated transit priority lanes — representing about 70% of the corridor. The proposed federal investment represents the largest recommended grant for a single BRT project in our region to date.
Chapel Hill’s transit director, Brian Litchfield, has noted that this month’s action of naming the project with an approved federal allocation is a huge step for this critical multimodal investment.
RTA is pleased to see the project included in the approved and signed budget. The regional business community has long supported the accelerated development of the Chapel Hill North-South BRT project, and we will continue to do so until it is under construction, as I have previously noted to the Triangle Business Journal. See more in a prior RTA blog.
Let’s get moving,
Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA executive director
RTA is the voice of the regional business community on transportation
