Leaders of the Special Transit Advisory Commission told city and county officials last week that by February they would deliver a new plan for transit improvements estimated to cost more than $5 billion over the next three decades.

Between now and February, the 29-member commission is expected to choose between two plans for a mix of bus and rail service that would be phased in over 30 years in 18 corridors across the region.

The group will weigh a 1995 Triangle Transit Authority plan to run diesel rail cars between Raleigh and Durham against a new proposal to combine heavier commuter trains with versatile buses that would alternate between city streets and concrete guideways.

The commission is saving the hardest part of its assignment for last: where to find the money.

"No matter what system we look at, it isn't going to be cheap," George Cianciolo of Chapel Hill, a Duke University pathologist who serves as the group's co-chairman, said at a meeting of elected city and county officials who make up the Triangle's two regional transportation planning boards.

On Tuesday, Mecklenburg County voted overwhelmingly to keep its transit sales tax which helps fund Charlotte Area Transit System's ambitious plans to expand its light rail and buses. The margin of victory stunned even transit supporters. With 96 percent of precincts counted, 70 percent voted against repeal, with 30 percent in favor of stopping the tax.

In the Triangle, rising costs and low ridership forecasts forced TTA last year to shelve its quest to build a 28-mile track for trains that would run several times every hour, 18 hours a day, from Durham through Research Triangle Park to Raleigh.

But the advisory group has not ruled out making TTA's tracks the spine of a rail, bus and streetcar network that could stretch across the region and into neighboring counties.

Full menu of options

Commission members -- 29 business, neighborhood and environmental leaders from Wake, Durham and Orange counties -- will spend the next three months deciding between the familiar TTA rail plan and other options:

* Commuters from Selma to Burlington could ride to work on trains that come into the Triangle each morning and reverse direction in the afternoon. The N.C. Railroad, which owns a 317-mile rail corridor from Morehead City to Charlotte, is studying the feasibility of adding commuter trains to tracks used by Amtrak and freight carriers.

* Buses, streetcars or light-rail trains could circulate continually through Research Triangle Park and the Triangle's downtown centers, picking up workers and shoppers. Raleigh-Durham International Airport is making plans to extend a transit link from the airport to RTP.

* A varied fleet of special buses could be deployed to get the edge on traffic congestion. One option is an exotic breed of bus that has become popular in Germany, Australia and Great Britain.

Curb-guided bus rapid transit uses a rubber-tire bus that travels both on city streets and on narrow paths lined with concrete curbs. The busway is a few inches wider than the vehicle. The bus is fitted with small horizontal wheels to hug the inside of the curb, much like a train clings to its rails.

This scenario, emphasizing commuter trains and curb-guided buses in the region's busy heart, has some elements in common with the version built around TTA's trains. Both plans envision frequent "circulators" for RTP and downtown areas, plus improved bus and commuter train links to outlying towns.

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