I attended the Regional Transportation lunch, hosted by the Triangle Community Coalition. Joe Milazzo, Executive Director, of Regional Transit Authority, addressed the delegation of Wake County Elected officials and citizens.     I will be putting his presentaton on the site in a few days, when it is released.

Legislative Priorities:

Joe laid out the Legislative priorities, this coming year,with the focus being as follows:

1) Complete 540 Expressway

2) Wake County Transit on a Ballot

3) Designate US 64 Freeway as an Intersatate

4) Fund High Speed rail betweeen Richmond and North Carolina and Washington DC

5) Support Strategic Mobility Formula

Other areas which he covered were the successful Bus on Shoulder Pilot, 440 Rebuild Project, and overview of the 147 Triangle Expressway project, which now sees 70,000 trips per week.

Finally, the Strategic Mobility Formula, makes sense as it assigns 40% of all funding for statewide projects, rather than regional projects, assigns the next 30% to seven regions, allocated by population, and the remaining 30 % is allocated, based on equal share based on need.    Wake County and our region would benefit from this more equitable founding formula, and I look forward to continued update by staff on this issue.

Overall, this was a wonderful overview and as always, transportation is the number one issue facing Morrisville, and we need to address this as a region, with our Town being the center of the region. So many folks travel through Morrisville on their way to other towns inside and outside the Triangle.

I do encourage the Wake County Commissioners to put transit on the ballot, and, like Bob Geolas, I do believe that transit is ciritical for our region being economically competitive with other regions of the world.

by