News

North Carolina’s largest economic development announcement is transportation-related — again.

After more than a year of recruiting, JetZero, a startup company developing blended wing body (BWB) aircraft, announced the largest economic development announcement in North Carolina history. While the company’s manufacturing facility won’t be located within the metropolitan Triangle, it will be located within central North Carolina, and all of us will benefit. Learn more in this week’s blog (alt web link) about the company’s plan for creating more than 14,000 jobs with a proposed capital investment exceeding $4 billion.

Simplicity saves time

Earlier this spring I mentioned our N.C. By Train Amtrak service, which guarantees intercity travel without the dreaded middle seat. This week I mention avoiding a different bane:  parallel parking.

On Friday afternoon I was having lunch with some potential future RTA members in downtown Raleigh. On the way to lunch I saw an individual struggle to parallel park on one of the main streets in the capital city. I was able to let them know that there are several downtown decks that provide free parking for two hours, and that I was heading to one of those decks right now.  The beauty of the downtown Raleigh parking program is that you know you will find parking, you know that you won’t have to pay for it, and you know that you won’t have to deal with parallel parking under traffic.

The Downtown 2 hour free parking program removes a mental barrier (where do I go, the challenge of parallel parking), a financial barrier (no payment), and a time barrier (no circling around looking for an empty spot). This regional business group will continue to push for simplicity and effectiveness in the customer experience, whether we are speaking about enhanced regional transit, freeway signage and navigation, downtown parking, and so on.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA executive director