Published: Nov 18, 2004

Modified: Nov 18, 2004 6:33 AM



Facing the (honking) music



It is no news to those who daily make the trip to Research Triangle Park
that traffic is worse, and that it may get worse still. A story in Sunday's
News & Observer underlined the importance of leaders of Triangle communities
and businesses getting serious about an escalating need for more transit
options beyond the personal automobile. It makes clear also the need to
consider highway traffic when approving zoning patterns for development.

In other words, it's time to take a good look under the transportation hood.
Commuters used to just complain a little about stack-ups on I-40. Oh, it was
periodic, and nothing compared to those rush-hour adventures of the
Northeast or Los Angeles. And no one would seriously say, it's true, that
I-40 compares to the San Diego Freeway on Sunday afternoon.

But the idea is to see that it never does, and to ensure that mayors and
city councils and county commissioners and state officials and business
leaders are going to get behind transportation alternatives.

Light rail isn't going to be the only answer, of course, but it is one
answer, and the Triangle Transit Authority is pushing on despite many years
of skepticism on the part of some community leaders that the area lacked the
"density" to support mass transit. (Would the skeptics like to take a run to
the Park at, say, 8 a.m. or 5 p.m.? Or how about a little jaunt along U.S.
64 'round Knightdale way?)

Do the numbers add up yet? Maybe not, but the whole idea with mass transit
is to get ahead in the count, to use a baseball term. Just look at the
enrollment increases in the Wake County schools for one example -- several
thousand additional students each year. Area universities are seeing the
same trend, and expecting it to get more intense.

And our assets, with the RTP and the research universities within close
proximity to each other, will continue to be a draw. Not to mention that the
area is full of state government employees whose jobs often take them to
Chapel Hill and Durham.

Rick L. Weddle, the head of RTP, is due credit for saying his organization
is going to roll up its sleeves and not concentrate just on its own mission
but on making the area "a better place to live and work, in a way that is
complementary to today's life patterns."

That means transportation, by the way. It means employers making bus service
or car pooling or other options besides the sedan attractive for workers.
And it means looking ahead to the day when TTA service might be looked at
not as an "alternative" but as the desired mode of getting where one needs
to go.

The area certainly has a lot going for it, but burgeoning traffic must be
addressed. As Weddle said of the RTP's wide-open, far-flung design of 45
years ago: "We did a few things right along the way, but the world has kind
of changed." The idea now must be to adapt to that change, and anticipate
the next one.