Budget blow likely for TTA rail plan

The Triangle's proposed 28-mile commuter train service will suffer another setback this week when the Bush administration sidelines the project for a second straight year.

Federal transit officials are still wrestling with doubts about whether the $810 million project would serve enough riders to justify building it. They will give the TTA proposal a "low" rating, squelching any hope for full federal funding this year.

TTA leaders have been briefed about the gloomy news, expected Tuesday in a Federal Transit Administration report. It follows a bleak prognosis from U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr that surprised TTA and shook its supporters.

The North Carolina senators said in a Dec. 14 letter to TTA that the rail project appeared unlikely to win federal approval. They urged TTA to "explore other opportunities."

Whether the project is doomed or not, TTA leaders are chugging forward. They want $485 million in federal funds to cover 60 percent of the rail project costs.

Some Triangle residents read the senators' letter as a declaration that TTA's train plans are dead or should be allowed to die.

Developers and employers who have been counting on the rail project are adjusting to the possibility that it won't be built.

Construction began last year on Davis Park, 153 acres planned for high-rise homes and businesses near the proposed Triangle Metro Center TTA rail stop. A big part of the draw for Davis Park is its location on the southern edge of Research Triangle Park.

"The rail was always a good thing, but not an absolute necessity for these developments to occur," said Cary developer Craig Davis, lead player in Davis Park. "But it would be very beneficial to people if, in fact, the rail would go through."

Davis Park's first flats and townhouses have just gone on sale, and their buyers will move in by late summer, Davis said. Plans call for up to 2,500 housing units and 300,000 square feet of commercial space in buildings four to six stories tall.

Davis and other builders are already benefiting from the TTA rail plan. They are taking advantage of higher density limits allowed by local planners to promote more compact, urban growth along the rail corridor.

If the rail plans are canceled, local officials might consider rolling back the compact zoning designations that allow 60 or more condos per acre in some spots. With no trains to ride, all those condo-dwellers could clog the streets.

"If these areas fully develop at the intensity that is laid out in our comprehensive plan, it would probably overwhelm the street system," said Frank M. Duke, Durham's city-county planning director.

Scaling back

Some developers say they will slow down or scale back their plans until the rail project's fate is decided. But TTA is moving ahead, buying or condemning land for rail stops it might never build.

And, after years of negotiations about how it will lay tracks and operate trains alongside Norfolk Southern's freights, TTA is about to sign agreements that will complete its control over the 28-mile corridor from west Durham through Research Triangle Park and Cary to downtown Raleigh.

TTA leaders say they face stiff odds in their effort to meet cost-effectiveness standards that were toughened last year. But they say Federal Transit Administration officials reassured them at a January meeting that they hope to resolve issues that have stalled TTA's plans for the past year.

"When the FTA indicates they're open to talking, and there's $485 million at stake, and we've spent 10 years pursuing it, we're still duty-bound to follow it through," said Wib Gulley, TTA's counsel.