It’s surprising to me how optimistic (or at least, not immediately defeatist) the Fayetteville MPO’s director sounds about putting a penny sales tax on a ballot. Then again, they did go out of their way to build a new downtown transit center near their Amtrak station and invest more in their transit system despite not increasing property taxes last year.
I really hope this second phase of the study can come up with clever solutions, though. Judging by their proposed goals, it sounds like planners aren’t sure if the freight rail companies, NCDOT, and other rail projects (SEHSR and GoTriangle’s commuter rail, for starters) would become supporters or obstacles. Depending on that and how their engineering scope/cost estimates go (read: if trains can run quickly, frequently, and cheaply enough), we could go anywhere from a surprise endorsement of the Artery to this project being dead in the water…
Oh by the way, since no one posted it on this thread, here’s the full report for Phase 1 of that study: