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Local and regional transit agencies across the Triangle will buy buses and make other improvements with some of North Carolina’s share of federal stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, federal officials said this week.

Ray LaHood, the U.S. transportation secretary, announced $52.5 million for transit improvements in North Carolina, including:

$7.6 million to Raleigh to buy 23 acres for a new bus operation and maintenance center and park-and-ride lot.

$4.3 million to Durham for bus maintenance and painting, 24 paratransit vans, 20 bus shelters, and GPS satellite technology that will give riders real-time information about bus arrival times.

$2.7 million to Chapel Hill for two 40-foot hybrid-electric buses, eight lift-equipped vans, a maintenance truck, bus shelters and benches, and hardware and software for a fleet inventory system.

$2.8 million to the Triangle Transit Authority for five 40-foot buses, three paratransit vans, a real-time bus arrival system, passenger amenities at bus stops, and paving.

First it was $4 gas, and later it was the recession. Whatever the reason, Americans have cut back on their driving over the past 18 months.

That should mean fewer traffic backups on the way to work each day.

How does it look through your windshield?  Are you getting to work more quickly these days, and home in time for supper?  Do you think Triangle traffic problems have eased since 2007?

I'd like to get your perspective for a story I'm writing this week.  Please call or e-mail me, and be sure to include your name and daytime contact info. 

S.T. Wooten Corp. of Wilson received a $49 million contract from NCDOT today to widen a 6-mile stretch of I-40 in West Raleigh, a long-sought project that will ease congestion in the Triangle's worst commuter bottleneck.

I-40 will grow from two to three lanes each way between Wade Avenue and the US 1/64 interchange. The added interstate lane also will reduce confusion at the chaotic split between Wade and eastbound I-40.

Plans call for extra wide shoulders and bridges that will make it easier in future years to add a fourth lane in each direction.

After the work is finished in mid-2011, thousands of I-40 commuters will have a quicker round trip each day.

“There are about 160,000 drivers using that facility each day, and each of them get delayed about 20 minutes a day because of the congestion there,” said Ed Johnson, director of CAMPO, the Raleigh area transportation planning agency.

That adds up to 53,000 hours wasted in traffic on that part of I-40.

“If you attach $10 an hour to the cost of a person's time, that's a half-million dollars a day this chokepoint is costing the region now in terms of time that could be better spent elsewhere,” Johnson said.

Wooten also will have the job of updating signs around Raleigh's Beltline. The old Inner/Outer Beltline designations will disappear, replaced by new markers dividing the Beltline between east/west I-40 and east/west I-440.

House Bill 148, authorizing counties to levy a half- or quarter-cent sales tax to fund transit improvements, was pulled from a Senate committee agenda today. It might be held aside until after the legislature adopts a budget.

Some legislators don't want to consider the local-option sales tax until after the House and Senate come to agreement on possible statewide hikes in sales and other taxes.

There are changes being considered for the bill whenever it does resurface.

The version approved by the House gives local county commissioners and voters (in a required referendum) the option for a half-cent sales tax in the Triad and Triangle's Wake, Durham, Orange, Guilford and Forsyth counties, with a quarter-cent option in all other counties except Mecklenburg (the only county that already has a half-cent transit sales tax).

Some Mecklenburg folks want to add the option to hike their transit sales tax from one-half to a full one cent. And Mecklenburg Sen. Dan Clodfelter wants to remove the quarter-cent option for the 94 outside the Triad and Triangle.

Stay tuned.

Parking rates will change at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, starting Wednesday.

Parking in the daily section of the RDU garage will go from $1 to $2 per hour until the daily maximum rate, unchanged at $10, is reached after five hours.

Parking in the hourly section will be unchanged at $1 per hour, with a daily maximum of $24.

That means the hourly section is less expensive than the daily section for stays of up to 9 hours.

RDU wants to encourage more travelers to use the hourly section -- to provide more space in the daily section for travelers who leave their cars for more than a day.

The park-and-ride lots will move to a flat rate of $6 per day, eliminating the old $1 hourly rate.

Saturday is your last chance to take the SmartCommute Challenge -- a good idea on its own merits -- and enter the drawing for prices including a $2,500 check.

So far 10,433 Triangle residents have taken the challenge -- which means they pledge to experiment with some commuting mode other than driving alone to work or school. In other words: bus, vanpool, carpool, walk, bike, telecommute, did I leave anything out?

The idea behind this six-week, three-county campaign is simple and smart. Give lots of people incentives to leave the car at home and experiment with other ways of getting to work, and some of this will stick. Some people will actually change their habits.

Details are online.