Title
Greater Triangle Commuter Rail Phase II Study Progress Update
Bret Martin, MPO Staff and Katharine Eggleston, GoTriangle
Body
GoTriangle, as the designated project sponsor for the commuter rail corridor identified in the Wake County Transit Plan, completed a Phase I alternatives analysis and feasibility study for the corridor in early 2020. This study evaluated:
1) The ability for the corridor to accommodate varying levels of service;
2) To what extent infrastructure improvements would need to be made to accommodate various service scenarios and the cost of those improvements;
3) The cost of other capital requirements, such as rolling stock, to accommodate the service scenarios;
4) Ridership projections for the service scenarios yielded by the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Simplified Trips On Project Software modeling framework;
5) A planning-level project implementation schedule;
6) Risks that could impact project feasibility, including cost and schedule impacts;
7) The feasibility of receiving funding for the various service scenarios through FTA's Capital Investment Grants program; and
8) Performance of the various service scenarios in comparison to peer systems nationwide.
In March of 2020, a number of commuter rail funding partners, including the CAMPO Executive Board, took action to fund further study for the corridor, including the advancement of a number of early project development activities. These activities are known as the Phase II study for the corridor. In summary, the scoped activities included under the Phase II study work to refine project feasibility further, define a project concept based on those feasibility findings, and prepare a defined project for entry into the FTA New Starts project development phase, should the funding partners determine that to be in the best interest of the region as the next step for the corridor.
GoTriangle commenced the Phase II study in the spring of 2020 and will provide an update to the Exe...
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