Secondary and Cumulative Impacts Master Management Plan - 2014

APPENDIX B – WAKE COUNTY PROGRAMS TO MITIGATE SECONDARY AND CUMULATIVE IMPACTS

Transportation Alliance, and the City of Raleigh’s Capital Area Transit. The Plan provides a dual approach to meeting expanding transit demands as the County continues to grow: (1) a core transit plan that broadens local and commuter bus service and includes a rush-hour commuter rail service from the Town of Garner to the City of Durham; and (2) an enhanced transit plan that involves building a regional light rail service from downtown Cary through downtown Raleigh, up to Millbrook Road (Wake County, 2012). Many of the projects identified in the Wake County Draft Transit Plan are included in the CAMPO 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP), discussed in the following section. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prepared for the regional light rail project indicates that affiliated parking areas will not impact levels of carbon monoxide. The document also indicates that the light rail system will result in lower levels of vehicle pollutant emissions (USDOT, 2002). In 2009, the County appointed a sustainability task force to address conservation and reduction goals related to solid waste, water, and energy related to air quality within the region. The 2011 sustainability task force report identified several strategies and performance measures for each of those goals related to air quality (Wake County, 2011). Open space, trees, and vegetation are integral to the improvement of air quality. Voters in Wake County passed bond referendums in 2000, 2004, and 2007, totaling $91 million to provide funds for parks and open space. The County continues to use these funds to purchase and preserve significant tracts of open space. Regional Efforts Triangle Transit, formerly Triangle Transit Authority, is expanding bus and shuttle services that link the Cities of Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh with RTP and RDU. Triangle Transit is working to develop plans to expand the system to include rail transit operations. Triangle Transit and also coordinates a ride-sharing program for regional commuters and is exploring the possibility of running some of its van-pool vehicles on compressed natural gas. CAMPO and the Durham –Chapel Hill-Carrboro MPO coordinated with the Triangle J Council of Governments (TJCOG) to develop a 2040 MTP, which involved an air quality conformity analysis for 2012 to 2018. The 2040 MTP incorporates the recommendations of the 2035 Long Range Transit Plan released by CAMPO, including proposed bus service expansion and enhancement as well as a light rail system, linking the Cities of Raleigh and Durham with RTP and the Towns of Cary and Morrisville. The project explored and analyzed regional growth scenarios for associated trade-offs and impacts on the transportation network. The recommendations in these plans for appropriate sizing of roads are incorporated into North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT’s) Transportation Improvement Program (TJCOG, 2013). In 2006/2007, Triangle Transit brought together the Triangle organizations that were working on and/or funding Transportation Demand Management (TDM) projects with the goal of creating a long-term plan for improving TDM efforts. The result was the Triangle Region 7-Year Long Range Travel Demand Management Plan. The purpose of the Triangle TDM Program is to reduce regional growth in vehicle miles traveled (VMT)

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