Interview: Doug Middleton, General

be increased in the coming years. The NC FIRST Commission, formed to advise the Secretary of Transportation on long-term transportation strategy, released a report, drawn from 18 months of analysis, that total investment, which now stands at $50 billion over the next decade ($5 billion annually) will have to be increased by an additional $20 billion by the end of this decade. Such an increase in costs will not be easy to meet, especially in this era of declining gas tax revenue; therefore, the commission recommends implementing new strategies for raising capital.

Raleigh-Durham International Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), while not a major regional hub like Charlotte or Atlanta, is a hive of activity commensurate with the size of the region it serves. In pre-pandemic times, the airport ( ) Doug Middleton

General Manager GoDurham

How do you ensure cohesion among regional transit partners?

As transit providers, we’re a very cohesive group in the Triangle to start with. We have certain processes and systems and mechanisms by which we collaborate on any number of issues, policies and initiatives. I’m very operational in orientation, so I work with the general managers and directors across several organizations anytime there are extraordinary events or scenarios impacting the region. During COVID, we constantly worked together and collaborated to get through the challenges in the most effective way possible. Aside from those epic disasters and impacts to operations in the community, we also collaborate on technologies. But we collaborate on service continuity, above all. We want to achieve a seamless transportation experience for our customers.

What is the private sector’s role in mass transit?

We sometimes partner with private entities or investor groups to solve community needs or introduce initiatives. For example, we work with many vendors to acquire new technologies. Currently, we’re working with mobile ticketing platforms to simplify and speed up the fare payment process for customers. Aside from that, private enterprise may be engaged in service expansion, opening up new markets, partnering with local governments to create better services in certain areas and adding more services. I was part of a program that involved local businesses in Washington. The businesses contributed investment funds and revenues to the agency to subsidize bus fares so they could get more people to start coming in from outside localities to visit and patronize the sleepy seaside village shopping and restaurant venues. It was a huge success that couldn’t have happened were it not for the private enterprise looking for what we provide, while understanding it is very expensive to finance independently and that they weren’t about to start up their own private transit system. This was a classic private-public partnership that was pretty successful.