Orange County is inching closer to consensus on a regional transit plan that could create a light rail system, expand bus service, and connect the county to the rest of the Triangle.
The Board of County Commissioners approved the regional transit plan "in principle" Tuesday night, contingent upon the approval of an implementation agreement with Triangle Transit Authority.
Commissioners voted 4-3 to support the plan's general tenets and submit changes on specifics to Triangle Transit. Commissioners Earl McKee, Steve Yuhasz and Alice Gordon voted against the plan, arguing that more time and transparency were needed to absorb public input and confirm cost figures.
"We are doing a disservice to the citizens in Orange County in obligating them to a tax that does not stop," McKee said. " … We do not at this point understand what we're adopting."
Gordon said she supports the plan and the tax referendum to fund it, but there are still too many unanswered questions, she said.
"I've worked for decades on this. I want to have it put on the referendum, but I don't feel this is the proper procedure," she said. "It's just not transparent and it's not due diligence."
The Orange County transit plan describes how TTA will spend the sales tax revenue from the half cent increase, if voter approve it in November.
The plan includes a light rail line that would connect Chapel Hill at UNC Hospitals to Durham at Alston Avenue, expanded bus service throughout rural and urban Orange County, new bus lanes on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill and new park and ride lots and a train station in Hillsborough.
The plan would also implement a $7.00 vehicle tag fee and a $3.00 increase to the current Triangle Transit tag fee.
Commissioners poured over the plan and questioned TTA officials on some inconsistencies on the costs of the plan for nearly three hours Tuesday night. TTA officials acknowledged several typos in cost estimates in the draft plan and assured commissioner they would be fixed.
Commissioners Valerie Foushee, Bernadette Pelissier, and Barry Jacobs supported the broad contents of the plan and said it's time to move ahead.
"The train needs to leave the station and there may need to be some adjustments but I think it's time to move forward," he said. "I'm ready to put it on the ballot so the voters of Orange County can tell us what they want to do."
Commissioners will send the plan back to TTA for revisions on the finances of the project. The county will also establish a formal implementation agreement with the transit group to determine how the money from the sales tax revenue is spent. The board voted 6-1 to levy an implementation agreement. McKee dissented.
"I really do support adopting this in principle because there are so many members of the public who have been waiting," Commissioner Pelissier said. "No plan will be perfect but to send a message the public that we are ready to move forward."
Commissioners also approved a cost-share agreement for the plan with Durham, 5-2. Commissioners McKee and Yuhasz voted against the agreement.
McKee opposed the agreement, and said he had heard that not passing the it would have been a deal-breaker.
"We've been held over a barrel for this one," he said.
Durham approved the agreement during their meeting this week. The counties would split costs based on what each gets: Orange County would pay $79.5 million; Durham County, $265.45 million.
It's important to be thorough in negotiating the plan, but some point it can move it backwards, said Commissioner Barry Jacobs.
"To quibble over things that may or may not ever happen at a time we're trying to get started at a certain point is counterproductive," he said.
Negotiations have been effective and the cost share plan is fair, Pelissier said.
"If we want federal dollars we want a regional plan," she said. "I really think this is fair."
"We did the best we could for out county," said Commissioner Pam Hemminger.
Commissioners are scheduled to vote on whether to put a half-cent sales tax increase on November's ballot to fund the plan on June 5.
Katelyn Ferral covers Orange County for The News & Observer and The Chapel Hill News.
Comments
Response to an excellent question from JASON BAKER
Thu, 05/24/2012 - 10:18 — stevenearlsalmonyDear Jason Baker, Your question is welcome. Thank you for it. It seems to me that before it is too late for human behavior of any kind to alter the present, perilous human-driven course of unfolding and fulminating ecological events in our planetary home, perhaps enough people like you and other thoughtful citizens, both inside and outside Chapel Hill, will speak out loudly and clearly in 'one voice' about what they believe to be real (according to the knowledge and the ‘lights’ they possess) regarding clear and imminent dangers to future human well being and environmental health that are visible in our time. Because the finite and frangible 'reality' of the natural world we inhabit has got to become more evident to people everywhere, day by day, and because the biological and physical limitations of the natural world will become obvious to people everywhere during the timeframe when humanity will face 'peak everything', humankind could sooner rather than later reach a point in space-time when a critical mass of people see and agree that ‘the endless growth’ paradigm that is so powerful and prominent in the human world in our time is, in fact, unsustainable. Then the artificially designed, manmade 'human world' will have to change, the seemingly unassailable forces of self-proclaimed masters of the universe, the global economy and the mass media notwithstanding. Human overpopulation, overproduction and overconsumption activities would be reasonably, sensibly and humanely regulated locally and worldwide. Human beings with feet of clay would not even be able to think in good faith of ourselves as Homo sapiens, much less behave as if there were no limits to growth on a planet with the size, composition and ecology of Earth. Such circumstances would compel all of us at least to try and change behavior that can be readily seen as distinctly human and patently unsustainable. With regard to the construction of an ‘economic colossus’ we call a global political economy, to the outrageous per capita overconsumption of limited resources and to the skyrocketing increase of absolute global human population numbers, changes toward right-sized corporate enterprises, sustainable lifestyles and population regulation would begin to occur ubiquitously. After all, there have got to be alternatives to engaging in human activities that are evidently unsustainable by a species calling itself Homo sapiens sapiens. Somehow, somewhere, at some moment the leading elders in the human community must agree to limit-setting. The outrageous per capita overconsumption and incredible individual hoarding to which you have drawn attention could be a good place to begin. Any human overgrowth activity will work well. Limiting overconsumption, as you suggest, as well as overproduction and overpopulation, as I would like to advise, could be even better. By simultaneously limiting human overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, we fundamentally change the endless growth paradigm and choose a new path, 'a road less traveled by', to the future. Until at least one human activity is meaningfully restrained, if not altogether halted from growing (at least momentarily), the unsustainable game of Ponzi we are recklessly and relentlessly playing, as we overconsume, overproduce and overpopulate, will eventually lead to colossal destruction of the natural world and to environmental degradation of a terrible, incalculable sort, I suppose.
Comments from one and all are invited.
Sincerely,
Steve Salmony
Your post could have been a
Tue, 05/29/2012 - 22:25 — reasonableYour post could have been a lot shorter and just as accurate if you had simply written "The sky is falling." Don't worry so much. It's neither healthy nor productive.
The rate of world population growth is slowing. If you want it to slow even more then work on enriching the poor and educating the uneducated because the wealthier and more educated people are, the fewer children they have.
But if you're really so concerned about the hoarding of resources and you want to act on a local level to improve the environment, try addressing the hoarding of green space near places where lots of people have to travel to work each day, such as Chapel Hill and Carrboro with respect to UNC. We have large numbers of people driving each day from Chatham County and Durham and Morrisville and Cary and Alamance and Hillsborough and Caswell County to UNC and then back at night. Try convincing self-identified environmentalists that live near UNC that it is more sustainable to have such people live near UNC instead of living far away and driving to UNC each workday. Let me know how it goes.
Limiting Economic and Population Growth
Mon, 05/21/2012 - 06:20 — stevenearlsalmonyResponse to The Draft Chapel Hill 2020 Comprehensive Plan
If we agree to “think globally”, it becomes evident that riveting attention on GROWTH could be a grave mistake because we are denying how economic and population growth in the Town of Chapel Hill cannot continue as it has until now. Chapel Hill’s resources are being dissipated, its environment degraded and its fitness as place for our children to inhabit is being threatened. To proclaim, as the CHN does on 5/20/12, that “the meat of Chapel Hill 2020 is, of course, growth” fails to acknowledge that the Town of Chapel Hill is already ‘built out’, and also ‘filled in’ with people. If the quality of life we enjoy now is to be maintained for the children, then limits on economic and population growth will have to be set. By so doing, we “act locally”.
More economic and population growth are not sustainable because there are biological constraints and physical limitations on human consumption, production and population activities on the surface of Earth, including Chapel Hill. Inasmuch as the Earth is finite with frangible environs, there comes a point at which GROWTH is unsustainable. There is much work to done locally. But that effort cannot begin without limiting economic and population growth.
To quote the CHN again, “We face a wide-open opportuniy to break with the old ways of doing the town’s business…..” That is a true statement. But the necessary “break with the old ways” of continous growth is not what is occurring. There is a call for a break with the old ways, but the required changes in behavior are not what is being proposed. What is being proposed and continues to occur is more of the same, old business-as-usual overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, the very activities that appear to be unsustainble. More business-as-usual could soon become patently unsustainable, both globally and locally. A finite planet with the size, compostion and environs of the Earth and a town with the boundaries, limited resources and wondrous climate of Chapel Hill may not be able to sustain the economic and population growth that is occurring on our watch. Perhaps necessary changes away from unsustainable growth and toward sustainable lifestyles and right-sized corporate enterprises are in the offing.
Think globally while there is still time and act locally before it is too late for human action to make any difference in the course of unfolding events both in our planetary home and our town.
Thank you to all. Steven Earl Salmony
Question
Mon, 05/21/2012 - 11:14 — jasonbakerThough I've heard it many times, I guess I still don't understand this position. How does limiting Chapel Hill's growth in any way have an impact on global population increases or consumption levels, other than by forcing our growing population to live elsewhere? I ask this question with sincerity and at least enough open-mindedness to seriously consider any citations or resources you might be able to provide.
I think a sound argument could be made that we have a local carrying capacity, and I take quite seriously indications that we may be approaching it. But carrying capacity is just as much a function of consumption as it is population - probably much more so (See: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/consumption_dwarfs_population_as_main_environmental_threat/2140/). There has never been a development pattern in the history of humanity as resource-hungry as suburbia - a development pattern we should be actively working to undo. Though not all density is created equally, in general, increased density is linked to a smaller ecological footprint (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/).
Global population growth is most certainly a huge environmental issue. But what link, at all, does it have to local development density? The only studies I have seen that compare population density to fertility rates show a mild but apparent negative relationship - that is, the denser the place you live, the fewer children you are likely to have.