Feds demand reality of rail

TTA must outline project's feasibility

Federal officials say they will give the Triangle Transit Authority until Sept. 30 to resolve doubts about the benefits of an $810 million commuter rail project -- and TTA's ability to pay for it.

The 28-mile train service would be more costly to operate than TTA expects, and passenger revenue probably would grow more slowly, the Federal Transit Administration said Tuesday.

Some transit advocates in Raleigh said TTA should not wait until September to decide whether its push for federal money has any hope of success. The authority and other Triangle leaders should start considering other solutions for the region's mobility needs, they said.

"A very realistic assessment needs to be made about their chances for getting federal money -- sooner rather than later," said David King, a deputy state transportation secretary who helped create TTA in the late 1980s.

TTA officials said they were working to provide the information federal officials need to evaluate the project.

The FTA said Tuesday in a report to Congress that it had delayed approval of the Triangle rail project for a second straight year while it waited for TTA to satisfy concerns the two agencies began discussing in the fall of 2004. The project got a "low" rating, and the FTA said it would not get full federal funding this year.

Federal doubts

After declining over the past year to discuss TTA's problems publicly, FTA officials provided new details Tuesday in the report and in interviews.

They still have problems with TTA's forecast for how many people would ride its trains in the future. They expressed doubts about whether TTA could cover the cost of building and operating the rail system while continuing to provide bus service.

"They [TTA officials] assume that the growth in [operating] costs will be less than inflation, and the growth of revenues will be more than inflation," said Sean Libberton, who oversees an FTA analysis office. "History does not bear that out."

If train operating costs were as low and passenger farebox revenue as high as TTA predicts, TTA would need less local tax money to help cover the difference. Any local funds not needed for train operations would be available to help pay construction costs.

The FTA report blamed "optimistic assumptions" in TTA's operating plan. As a result, it said, the construction funding plan depended on more local tax money than was likely to be available.

The FTA criticized the Triangle authority's plan for relying on a "speculative" estimate of $65 million in revenue from joint economic development projects planned with private partners near rail stations. Cherokee Investment Partners of Raleigh, chosen as "master developer" for the station sites, has said that TTA could count on that much money to defray construction costs.

"There's no signed agreement that would support that commitment of funding to the project," Libberton said by telephone.

Sandy Bushue, the deputy FTA administrator, told reporters that TTA officials would have to pull together a lot of information to resolve the agency's questions.

"They're just not there, I believe," Bushue said.

Joe Bryan of Knightdale, a Wake County commissioner, said Triangle taxpayers were not likely to come up with more money for the project. Its outlook is growing dim, he said.

"It's hard to be very optimistic," said Bryan, who leads a Wake transportation planning agency.

"There are unbelievable challenges in the region now for other things, like the number of schools we need to build in Wake County," he said. "I don't see additional funding coming from the local level. In fact, the level of funding we have now will probably be looked at."

The Triangle will need better transit service soon, and trains probably will be part of daily life eventually, he said.

"We need to be planning and preserving rail corridors -- and maybe working more on the rubber-tire side at this time," Bryan said.

John Claflin, TTA's general manager, told reporters Monday that the authority was doing all it could to satisfy the federal questions. "We will carefully explore and review ways to keep the project competitive," he said.

FTA officials said the Triangle project would be taken out of the federal pipeline if the issues were not resolved by Sept. 30, with sufficient information to earn a passing grade. They said they would not prejudge TTA's prospects until the evidence was in.

"They [TTA officials] have been talking to us about looking at some other options," said Brigid Hynes-Cherin, an associate administrator. "And we have encouraged them to do that."