The year ahead: Regional Transportation Alliance Executive Director Joe Milazzo

This essay is one of a series written by Triangle leaders and experts about their visions for a new decade.

The Regional Transportation Alliance is the voice of the business community on transportation, and a regional program of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. Our top priority for 2020 is sustainable funding for Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

RDU is the nation’s most-connected non-hub airport, and the region loves its beautiful campus and increasing array of nonstop destinations.

However, the Triangle’s growth has created the need for $3 billion to $4 billion in infrastructure at the airport, including new or reconstructed runways and taxiways, expanded terminals and more gates, additional security checkpoints, and even more curb space. RTA has a task force looking at possible solutions for a potentially multi-billion-dollar funding gap. We will speak more about this at our annual meeting on January 17.

By the end of the next decade, I would like to see our region fully embracing quality bus transportation as a legitimate, and often preferred, way to get around, with our roadways having been transformed into true multimodal freeways and streets that prioritize transit.

We will have five or more bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors open in several of our communities by 2027, each with dedicated or priority transit lanes.

RTA, with support from GoTriangle and NCDOT, is commissioning a study to accelerate the creation of a regional Freeway And Street-based Transit (“FAST”) network that would effectively complement, extend, and link the BRT corridors while providing seamless connections to future commuter rail.

Both BRT and regional FAST buses would be powered by electricity or compressed natural gas and provide rapid, frequent, reliable and easy-to-use service, with traffic signal priority to keep buses moving.

The regional business community looks forward to the next decade of progress, mobility and prosperity.

Joe Milazzo II is executive director of the Regional Transportation Alliance.

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