Durham County transportation director outlines transit plan, rail‑trail proposal and railroad crossing safety study

Durham County Transportation Director Ellen Beckman told viewers that the Durham County Transit Plan is the county's long-range vision for public transit funded by the county's approved half‑cent sales tax and overseen through an annual work program that the Board of Commissioners approved last week. “The annual work program is the annual budget for those funds,” Beckman said.

Beckman said the county serves primarily in a budgeting role for those funds while coordinating with operational partners, naming the City of Durham's GoDurham system and GoTriangle as critical partners and noting the Triangle West Transportation Planning Organization handles much of the region's long-range planning. “So they're critically important partner[s],” she said.

Facing a tight revenue outlook, Beckman said sales-tax receipts have declined compared with previous years, making the coming fiscal year largely a continuation budget rather than a year of major new spending. “Unfortunately, this year, is a tough budget year…we're dependent on the sales tax revenues, and they have declined compared to previous years,” she said. Despite that, Beckman said projects funded through the Transit Plan will continue, including improvements at downtown Durham Station and bus-stop upgrades across the community.

Beckman described a potential rail-trail opportunity along an unused railroad corridor that stretches about 26 miles, 18 of which she said lie within Durham County, running from downtown Durham toward Person County. The county is considering purchasing the corridor from Norfolk Southern to convert it to a greenway similar to the American Tobacco Trail. “We have an opportunity right now to purchase the corridor from Norfolk Southern and…use it in the future to convert to a Greenway,” Beckman said.

On safety, Beckman said Durham County received a 2022 federal grant to study three East Durham railroad crossings—Plum Street, Driver Street and Ellis Road—because those crossings have a history of crashes and can disrupt the transportation network when incidents occur. The study will evaluate options including grade separation or closure and will include community engagement and technical analysis with partners such as NCDOT and the City of Durham.

Beckman emphasized the county will pursue extensive community engagement as it moves projects forward and pointed to a county “transit tracker” dashboard that publicly shows implementation details for transit plan projects, including budget spending and bus-stop improvements. She said stakeholder engagement schedules are being developed and that meetings and surveys will be advertised on the county website and social media.

Beckman closed by noting that transportation investments are long-term and often the result of decades of planning: “a lot of these investments are long term…they do take years, sometimes even decades to build,” she said. The related projects and engagement activities are expected to proceed this year as schedules and funding permit.