The latest planning for transit in Wake County got underway Monday night when a large crowd met in the Raleigh Convention Center to hear consultant Jarrett Walker talk about his reasons for transit and the choices the county will make about it.
Three Wake Forest people will play a part in those choices. Mayor Vivian Jones, who was instrumental in obtaining the free local loop bus and the express bus to and from Raleigh, will be on the advisory committee along with Terence Everitt, an attorney who is on the board of directors for the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce. That advisory group will meet about every two months.
A second group, which Jones said was the technical group, will meet regularly. Wake Forest Planning Director Chip Russell is one of the members.
Walker, who was hired by the Wake County Board of Commissioners a month ago, will work with the design and engineering firm of Kimley Horn.
“I was very impressed with him,” Jones said of Walker. He talked about the process of drawing up a transit plan and said, “I’m here to help you decide what you want.” “He’s obviously done this in a lot of places and has a really good way of sharing information.”
Walker said the county must choose what type of system it want, whether the goal is to provide transit where and how there is the greatest potential for ridership – and income – or whether the goal is to serve everyone as much as you can.
“It’s a spectrum, and you have to decide where on that spectrum you want to be,” Jones said.
Jones was back in Raleigh Tuesday morning for the first meeting of the advisory committee, during which Walker gave the members a pretend plan with tools and asked them to design a transit plan for a town. Later, he put each up on the wall and explained how the different plans worked. Some were on a grid, some provided more coverage, some took everyone to downtown and then out to destinations.
“We had to vote on which one of those plans did we think answered the needs for [those with] low incomes, those who live downtown. It was a very good exercise and very interesting,” Jones said.
Walker and the committees will look at the transit plan drawn up by municipal and interested people five years ago but never discussed or approved by the county commissioners.
