Group wants better looking Durham-Orange light-rail stations with more shade

A local urban design group wants tobacco barns, factories and warehouses to inspire the look of the planned Durham-Orange light rail stations.

“It appears architecture and art have taken a back seat to engineering aspects of the project,” Dan Jewell, president of the Durham Area Designers, told the GoTriangle Board of Trustees and officials in Durham and Orange counties in a July 19 letter.

The letter was written in response to preliminary concept plans presented at an April workshop. GoTriangle hasn’t released any updated or final station designs.

The 17.7-mile Durham-Orange light-rail line could have 19 stations linking UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill to Duke and N.C. Central universities in Durham. The project is more than halfway through the final, engineering stage and could be submitted later this year to the Federal Transit Administration for possible federal funding.

The Durham Area Designers, a group that advocates for “good urban design,” thinks the draft designs could better reflect Durham and Orange counties, while offering better protection from the weather, Jewell said.

“To be clear, the experience of riders begins and ends at the station, and if that experience is not comfortable and enjoyable, ridership will suffer over time,” he said. “Multiple transit studies have suggested that the architectural quality of stations should be as high a priority as more conventional planning metrics, including cost and travel time.”

Jewell also asked for more opportunities for the public to offer written feedback.

GoTriangle officials responded with an emailed statement.

“The light-rail project currently has funding for basic station design elements, but no designs have been finalized at this point,” spokeswoman Burgetta Wheeler said. “GoTriangle welcomes input and sponsorships to help fund and shape the final light-rail station designs.”

Orange County Commissioner Barry Jacobs also responded to the group’s letter, thanking them in an email for their comments. The project’s cost — now $3.3 billion, including the anticipated interest on loans — is a “major consideration” for Orange County, he said.

“The Orange County commissioners also have repeatedly expressed concerns about the planning process and, as is often the case with GoTriangle, have been met with a genial smile and a deaf ear,” Jacobs said.

The commissioners have asked GoTriangle officials multiple times to be included with Durham and Chapel Hill in the station-planning process. A meeting involving Orange County, Chapel Hill, and Durham city and county officials was held in June but focused on land design and the economic potential of light-rail station area development.

GoTriangle held four planning workshops this year to get ideas for how the system should look and feel to riders and passersby.

Durham Area Designers members attended those workshops, Jewell said, and think the “gull wing” canopy designs presented at the April workshops would be “ineffective in providing actual shade and protection from the elements.”

The concepts feature small geometric and plant motifs etched into glass and concrete — in muted pinks, blues, gray and black. Those ideas do not reflect local history, culture, materials or public input, Jewell said.

His group offered several recommendations:

▪ Reflect the local architecture, design and materials found in tobacco barns, factories and warehouses

▪ Extend the canopies from the platform to the train and cover at least 75 percent of the platform

▪ Use brick and metal with patina, a gloss that forms over time and exposure, instead of applied patterns

▪ Avoid stainless steel, aluminum and forced, repetitive patterns

▪ Make sure there is room for art — now or in the future

This story was originally published July 24, 2018 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Group wants better looking Durham-Orange light-rail stations with more shade."