From the N&O:
The GoTriangle board of trustees voted unanimously but reluctantly Wednesday to end the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project.
After a closed-door session Wednesday, general manager Jeff Mann recommended to the board that the agency discontinue the $2.7 billion construction project to connect UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill with Duke University and other destinations along an 18-mile route.
After several years, and millions of dollars, it appears the Durham-Orange light rail money pit is dead.
Originally projected to cost $1.6 billion, the project’s most recent estimated price tag had ballooned to $2.7 billion – a 69 percent spike in cost before it even broke ground.
Light rail is perhaps the most inefficient means of transportation in modern history. For instance, the Durham-Orange line would have been fourteen times as expensive than a four-lane highway per mile, and moved only about 7 percent as many commuters.
For the same amount of money they were planning to spend on the 17-mile light rail line, DOT could build roughly 250 miles of four lane highway.
With the project being called off, at least the Durham County half-cent sales tax and registration fee hike enacted to fund the line will also expire, right?
GoTriangle will continue to collect the half-cent sales tax and portion of car registration and rental fees that are funding light rail and other transit improvements. That money will be available for other plans, Marcoplos said.
Ooops.
Good riddance to this crony boondoggle.
