Light rail transit plans: 17 miles by 2019, 69 miles by 2035

Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker is pushing a 10-year Wake County transit plan that dovetails with long-term proposals to spread bus and rail service across the Triangle over the next quarter century.

The Capital Area and Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro metropolitan planning organization boards (made up of Triangle-area mayors, town council members and county commissioners) are expected at their February meetings to endorse 2035 long-range transportation plans that include multi-billion-dollar investment in new transit networks. (Here are links to the complete CAMPO and DCHC draft 2035 plans.)

Here's a transit timetable spelled out in the three combined plans:

First, more buses. Starting with 75 new buses in Wake County by 2013 and 300 across the region by 2025.

By 2019, the first light-rail trains are running from northwest Cary through downtown Raleigh to Spring Forest in North Raleigh (17 miles).

Across the region, more light rail comes on line by ...

2023: UNC-Chapel Hill to downtown Durham (15.8 miles)

2025: Downtown Durham to Triangle Metro Center in southern Research Triangle Park (9.6 miles)
- Northwest Cary to Triangle Metro Center (6.8 miles)
- Spring Forest to Triangle Town Center mall (1.5 miles)
Also by 2025, some sort of transit link from RDU airport to RTP.

2035: Cary to Apex (9.7 miles)
- Triangle Town Center to Wake Forest (8.7)
Also by 2035, rush-hour commuter trains from a point east of Clayton to downtown Raleigh (16 mies).