"Officials Put Plan for Rail Link to Raleigh, N.C., Airport on Hold"

Thursday, June 20, 2003

Officials Put Plan for Rail Link to Raleigh, N.C., Airport on Hold
The Raleigh, (NC) News & Observer


Build a train to the plane? Local officials will refrain. 

Linking Raleigh-Durham International Airport to the planned regional
rail system is not feasible "for the foreseeable future," according to
an agreement approved Thursday by airport officials.

The Triangle Transit Authority, which plans to start running the trains
in late 2007 between Raleigh, Research Triangle Park and Durham, is
expected to sign the agreement in the coming months. In it, both parties
pledge to improve public access to the airport but say that for now, the
TTA's existing shuttle bus service is the way to go.

A rail link is "many years" away, Airport Director John Brantley said.
The timing depends on the airport's first building its own train system
between the terminals and its rental car facilities. There's no
timetable for that.

If the TTA ever opens a rail link to RDU, it probably would use the same
technology -- a monorail is a likely option -- as the airport's internal
train system. The TTA plans a commuter rail station at N.C. 54 and Miami
Boulevard in RTP, and the airport line would likely run from there.

But a monorail, or a system like it, would be expensive, between $146
million and $336 million. And a recent study showed that a monorail
would attract only 1,700 passengers a day in 2025, about 2 percent of
airport travelers. That's only a few hundred more than the number of
riders who would take ordinary shuttle buses to the airport in 2025.

Currently, some shuttle buses run empty and others with only one or two
passengers, and they don't run at all on Sundays. The airport authority
and the TTA agreed to continue that service in the short term but to
market it better and explore ways to make the trip quicker.

The TTA plans a marketing blitz at Thanksgiving, including running buses
on Sunday, to introduce the service to potential riders.

The shuttle service could also benefit from high-occupancy vehicle
lanes, which are under consideration in the Triangle but also are many
years away. Smaller improvements, such as building special ramps at
highway interchanges, could also speed the trip and make the option more
attractive.

Brantley predicted that the Triangle would slowly work up to a
sophisticated rail link to RDU, and how fast that happens depends in
part on how successful the TTA's trains prove to be. "Until you have
that experience, you're shooting darts in a dark alley," he said.

Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy, one of four Triangle mayors pushing for an
early link to the airport, said that buses, perhaps in their own
dedicated highway lane, might prove more practical.

"The question is not whether 'Is it a bus, is it a train, do you have to
get on and get off?' " he said. "The question is a balance of
convenience."


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